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A Huge Pile of New Games
Jul. 15th, 2006 10:36 pmToday was the RPGnet Minicon at EndGame, and I got to play a huge pile of new games, thanks to recent review boxes from Playroom Entertainment and Mattel and David Goldfarb picking up quite a few of the recent releases. And, I really liked most of them and didn't regret any of them, so it was all around a good day.
The only old game was Ra, and who can complain about that? It was the last game of the evening, and by that point we'd gone through every new game in my and David's bags. Here's what else I played:
Knights of Charlemagne: Playroom's version of Tabula Rasa. I actually played this with Kimberly while waiting for a ride out to EndGame. It's very Lost Cities-esque, except you're competing to gain control of ten different regions, five of which you can only play certain colors on and five of which you can only play certain numbers on.
I didn't feel like it had the same level of hard decisions as Lost Cities, but it played fast and each move was interesting, and it did tighten up as we were running out of cards at the end. And, unlike Lost Cities (or the other game in the pseudo-series, Battleline), it plays with 3 or 4. I suspect it'll actually be best with three, and that the early- to mid-game decisions will get harder.
I'll have to make sure to try this next time we have 3 or 4 around, and in the meantime I'm sure Kimberly and I will play it again. My initial rating is 4/3-4 on the RPGnet scale, but I except it'll settle on 4/4. Call it a "B" from a first try.
Dead Man's Treasure: Another new Knizia from Playroom. This one is a lightning-fast blind-bidding game, where each person has an identical set of (8) resources and tries to use them to take control of treasures on a set of 6 islands. I was pleasntly surprised, and think it actually works quite well, with the decisions getting quite interesting toward the end of the game.
Alex, David, and I played two quick games of this toward the end of the day's gaming, and each time I groaned in the last couple of rounds at my inability to get things to settle just like I wanted them. I suspect this will end up being another "B".
Of the new Playroom games:
DMT feels a bit overproduced, but KOC isn't, and they're both pretty strong games, which all around is a step up for Playroom's Knizia titles. I think Knizia fans are generally going to want to get these, with KOC a surer bet than DMT.
Scepter of Zavandor: First of all, it's not good that I have to look up this game's title when I want to type it in. Beyond that, I find it ironic that I had a copy of this game's predecessor, Outpost for about 10 years, never played it, then finally traded it away. Though I enjoyed today's play, I actually don't regret trading the Outpost at all, because I cashed it in for 6 or 8 games, and given that Scepter's 3 hours was a bit long for me, Outpost's 6 would have been totally overboard.
In any case, this is a resource management game, where you're trading off cash, the ability to produce cash, victory points, various ability gains, and artifacts with special powers. I played hard on the ability gains, I think generally to my benefit, but by the end of the game it was obvious that I'd neglected my income apparatus, and that almost cost me 2nd place. (I never had a chance at 1st.)
Overall, I quite liked the interactions of the various systems, and think they allowed for very interesting strategic play. If it weren't 3 hours, this is a game that I'd love to regularly play. However, I think it does support the 3 hour length if you're willing to put it in, and expect my final rating of this game would be an "A" if I ever reviewed it.
The game does have a runaway leader issue, and it's pretty hard to do anything to catch up or stop him.
Desert Bazaar: This is a new game coming out from Mattel later this year. It's clearly intended for a wider audience, but nonetheless it's definitely a Euro. You gather resources and use those resources to build tents in a game that lies somewhere between Settlers of Catan and Attika (but which isn't overly derivative of either).
The center of the game is a pure efficiency game, trading off cards versus victory points (and also turns versus victory points, ultimately). I am unconvinced that the game isn't gamable through a maximally efficient method, but it's going to get another play before I determine that. It looks to me like building a new encampment is a bit powerful because you spend 3 cards, and you get 2 VPs immediately and 1 later on. It's pretty hard to do better than a 1:1 card:VP ratio, though possible, so this makes a middling-to-good strategy a bit easy in my mind. There's also very little penalty for holding onto a large set of cards, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't keep gathering cards for just about forever before playing. Any improved efficiency you might see in gameplay before hand is going to be lost through those 2-3 cards you didn't get on that turn's play.
But, like I said, more plays required.
Funny Friends: I was prepared not to be impressed by this game, but it's really quite charming and a very interesting auction game. Each player has five goal cards, each of which has requisites and results. So, for example "Your First Heart Attack" might be a goal with requisites of 1x smoking, 1x drinking, and 1x ... something else, and results of 1x ill health. The game centers around moving your stats like smoking, drinking, etc. up (or sometimes down) in order to meet goals, and when you meet 5, you win.
The rules were really fuzzy on interacting with other people, but beyond that it was pretty sharp, and a lot fun; the same sort of formulaic goal auction as Traumfabrik but wholely different and entertaining.
If the very colorful actions and goals don't get old, this is a great game. It's hovering in the "A" to "B+" range for me right now, and has gone onto my to-buy list. I don't really have money for it right now, when I'm trying to make sure I can buy my Nurnberg-10, but when I do, I want to pick this up.
Thurn & Taxis: Speaking on the Nurnberg-10, this is one of them. It's a connection game in a pretty pure form, but there's lots of careful planning and brinkmanship. It lies quite close to Ticket to Ride in some ways, but has totally original play. I stressed as I played, as I do with TtR and liked it quite a bit.
I also bought a copy (before I played actually), and am not sorry at all about that acquisition. I suspect this is another "A", and especially given the strong German theming, I also suspect it's the SdJ winner.
Whew, that's a bunch of games!
The only old game was Ra, and who can complain about that? It was the last game of the evening, and by that point we'd gone through every new game in my and David's bags. Here's what else I played:
Knights of Charlemagne: Playroom's version of Tabula Rasa. I actually played this with Kimberly while waiting for a ride out to EndGame. It's very Lost Cities-esque, except you're competing to gain control of ten different regions, five of which you can only play certain colors on and five of which you can only play certain numbers on.
I didn't feel like it had the same level of hard decisions as Lost Cities, but it played fast and each move was interesting, and it did tighten up as we were running out of cards at the end. And, unlike Lost Cities (or the other game in the pseudo-series, Battleline), it plays with 3 or 4. I suspect it'll actually be best with three, and that the early- to mid-game decisions will get harder.
I'll have to make sure to try this next time we have 3 or 4 around, and in the meantime I'm sure Kimberly and I will play it again. My initial rating is 4/3-4 on the RPGnet scale, but I except it'll settle on 4/4. Call it a "B" from a first try.
Dead Man's Treasure: Another new Knizia from Playroom. This one is a lightning-fast blind-bidding game, where each person has an identical set of (8) resources and tries to use them to take control of treasures on a set of 6 islands. I was pleasntly surprised, and think it actually works quite well, with the decisions getting quite interesting toward the end of the game.
Alex, David, and I played two quick games of this toward the end of the day's gaming, and each time I groaned in the last couple of rounds at my inability to get things to settle just like I wanted them. I suspect this will end up being another "B".
Of the new Playroom games:
DMT feels a bit overproduced, but KOC isn't, and they're both pretty strong games, which all around is a step up for Playroom's Knizia titles. I think Knizia fans are generally going to want to get these, with KOC a surer bet than DMT.
Scepter of Zavandor: First of all, it's not good that I have to look up this game's title when I want to type it in. Beyond that, I find it ironic that I had a copy of this game's predecessor, Outpost for about 10 years, never played it, then finally traded it away. Though I enjoyed today's play, I actually don't regret trading the Outpost at all, because I cashed it in for 6 or 8 games, and given that Scepter's 3 hours was a bit long for me, Outpost's 6 would have been totally overboard.
In any case, this is a resource management game, where you're trading off cash, the ability to produce cash, victory points, various ability gains, and artifacts with special powers. I played hard on the ability gains, I think generally to my benefit, but by the end of the game it was obvious that I'd neglected my income apparatus, and that almost cost me 2nd place. (I never had a chance at 1st.)
Overall, I quite liked the interactions of the various systems, and think they allowed for very interesting strategic play. If it weren't 3 hours, this is a game that I'd love to regularly play. However, I think it does support the 3 hour length if you're willing to put it in, and expect my final rating of this game would be an "A" if I ever reviewed it.
The game does have a runaway leader issue, and it's pretty hard to do anything to catch up or stop him.
Desert Bazaar: This is a new game coming out from Mattel later this year. It's clearly intended for a wider audience, but nonetheless it's definitely a Euro. You gather resources and use those resources to build tents in a game that lies somewhere between Settlers of Catan and Attika (but which isn't overly derivative of either).
The center of the game is a pure efficiency game, trading off cards versus victory points (and also turns versus victory points, ultimately). I am unconvinced that the game isn't gamable through a maximally efficient method, but it's going to get another play before I determine that. It looks to me like building a new encampment is a bit powerful because you spend 3 cards, and you get 2 VPs immediately and 1 later on. It's pretty hard to do better than a 1:1 card:VP ratio, though possible, so this makes a middling-to-good strategy a bit easy in my mind. There's also very little penalty for holding onto a large set of cards, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't keep gathering cards for just about forever before playing. Any improved efficiency you might see in gameplay before hand is going to be lost through those 2-3 cards you didn't get on that turn's play.
But, like I said, more plays required.
Funny Friends: I was prepared not to be impressed by this game, but it's really quite charming and a very interesting auction game. Each player has five goal cards, each of which has requisites and results. So, for example "Your First Heart Attack" might be a goal with requisites of 1x smoking, 1x drinking, and 1x ... something else, and results of 1x ill health. The game centers around moving your stats like smoking, drinking, etc. up (or sometimes down) in order to meet goals, and when you meet 5, you win.
The rules were really fuzzy on interacting with other people, but beyond that it was pretty sharp, and a lot fun; the same sort of formulaic goal auction as Traumfabrik but wholely different and entertaining.
If the very colorful actions and goals don't get old, this is a great game. It's hovering in the "A" to "B+" range for me right now, and has gone onto my to-buy list. I don't really have money for it right now, when I'm trying to make sure I can buy my Nurnberg-10, but when I do, I want to pick this up.
Thurn & Taxis: Speaking on the Nurnberg-10, this is one of them. It's a connection game in a pretty pure form, but there's lots of careful planning and brinkmanship. It lies quite close to Ticket to Ride in some ways, but has totally original play. I stressed as I played, as I do with TtR and liked it quite a bit.
I also bought a copy (before I played actually), and am not sorry at all about that acquisition. I suspect this is another "A", and especially given the strong German theming, I also suspect it's the SdJ winner.
Whew, that's a bunch of games!