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shannon_aI find it interesting that Stefan Feld designed all three of the newest Alea Big Box games. Does he have an "in" with the developer or is he just developing exactly what's desired? It's probably impossible to say.
Of Feld's three Alea designs--Rum & Pirates, Notre Dame, and Year of the Dragon--I'm pretty sure this first one is the least respected. That's because it feels like a very different sort of game, a light family game to be precise. Not that Alea hasn't developed in that space before. Adel Verpflichtet is certainly a game of very similar weight. It's just not the game space that people who see Puerto Rico as the epitome of the Alea series are looking for.
Anyway, Rum & Pirates is a really innovative expansion of the worker placement genre. We've certainly seen the genre in other games--like Caylus, Agricola, and Pillars of the Earth--but no other game does worker placement like Rum & Pirates. Here, you have a group of pirates wandering from one intersection in town to another. Each intersection gives some special powers (making them the roles that you select with your workers). On your turn you place down one or more pirates that lead you to a new intersection, take the power of the intersection, then go again if you want to spend a coin.
I suspect most people don't even think of this game as worker placement (or role selection if you prefer to open the category a little wider), but it surely is. It just offers a different sort of worker placement than any other game because it's heavily geographically based. Add that to some other original features and you have several elements that I'd like other designers to think of, namely:
Having written that all down, I see one category of games that shares some similarities with Rum & Pirates--the roundel role selection games. They use roundels to limit what roles you can select in future turns, but they're much more constrained, and they're closer to role selection than worker placement because they're more unitary.
Generally, I think that all or most of Feld's games are worker-selection games of different sorts, which is probably a topic that's worthy of an article all its own.
Rum & Pirates also has a lot of die-rolling to it. You dice to see who wins inn tiles, who gets sleeping positions on the boat, and who gets stung by the scorpion. That's probably the thing that turns away most serious gamers. Though I'm perfectly happy to have some luck in my games, especially when it's somewhat controlled (and Rum & Pirates does have rum barrels, which give you some control by offering you rerolls), even I think that there's too much die rolling in the game. Primarily, I think, because a lot of the die rolling is very repetitive.
So, serious gamers may not be entirely into the game, but then they're not the intended audience either. It's families who are, and for them I find Rum & Pirates a generally interesting game, though both I and other players have concerns that it might run too long for that category of players. But, we're not that category of gamers, so what can we say for sure?
L1: Ra. A+. (Plays: 15) [ Read my Review ]
L2: Chinatown. B-. (Plays: 1)
L3: Taj Mahal. A+. (Plays: 7)
L4: Princes of Florence. A. (Plays: 4+) [ Read my Review ]
L5: Adel Verpflichtet. B. (Plays: 2) [ Read my Review ]
L6: Traders of Genoa. A+. (Plays: 3+) [ Read my Review ]
S1: Wyatt Earp. B+ (Plays: 2)
S2: Royal Turf. A- (Plays: 6)
L7: Puerto Rico. A+ (Plays: 11) [ Read my Review ]
S3: Die Sieben Weisen C (Plays: 1)
S4: Edel, Stein & Reich B- (Plays: 1) [ Read my Basari Review ]
L8: Mammoth Hunters B+ (Plays: 5) [ Read my Review. ]
S5: San Juan A+ (Plays: 32) [ Read my Review; plus Glory to Rome review. ]
L9: Fifth Avenue C- (Plays: 3+)
M1: Louis XIV B+ (Plays: 7) [ Read my Review ]
M2: Palazzo B- (Plays: 6)
L10: Rum & Pirates B (Plays: 3)
I think I was actually supposed to play Augsburg 1520 next, but they came out the same year (2006), so no big ...
And I just discovered that the next big box game is Stefan Feld too! It's called Macao and it'll be lucky #13.
Of Feld's three Alea designs--Rum & Pirates, Notre Dame, and Year of the Dragon--I'm pretty sure this first one is the least respected. That's because it feels like a very different sort of game, a light family game to be precise. Not that Alea hasn't developed in that space before. Adel Verpflichtet is certainly a game of very similar weight. It's just not the game space that people who see Puerto Rico as the epitome of the Alea series are looking for.
Anyway, Rum & Pirates is a really innovative expansion of the worker placement genre. We've certainly seen the genre in other games--like Caylus, Agricola, and Pillars of the Earth--but no other game does worker placement like Rum & Pirates. Here, you have a group of pirates wandering from one intersection in town to another. Each intersection gives some special powers (making them the roles that you select with your workers). On your turn you place down one or more pirates that lead you to a new intersection, take the power of the intersection, then go again if you want to spend a coin.
I suspect most people don't even think of this game as worker placement (or role selection if you prefer to open the category a little wider), but it surely is. It just offers a different sort of worker placement than any other game because it's heavily geographically based. Add that to some other original features and you have several elements that I'd like other designers to think of, namely:
- Role selection that is geography constrained based on what the last person did (e.g., you can only go to nearby intersections).
- A resource cost for role selection that's also based on geography (e.g., it takes different numbers of pirates to get to different places).
- An option to take additional roles for a separate resource cost (e.g., the gold to take extra turns).
Having written that all down, I see one category of games that shares some similarities with Rum & Pirates--the roundel role selection games. They use roundels to limit what roles you can select in future turns, but they're much more constrained, and they're closer to role selection than worker placement because they're more unitary.
Generally, I think that all or most of Feld's games are worker-selection games of different sorts, which is probably a topic that's worthy of an article all its own.
Rum & Pirates also has a lot of die-rolling to it. You dice to see who wins inn tiles, who gets sleeping positions on the boat, and who gets stung by the scorpion. That's probably the thing that turns away most serious gamers. Though I'm perfectly happy to have some luck in my games, especially when it's somewhat controlled (and Rum & Pirates does have rum barrels, which give you some control by offering you rerolls), even I think that there's too much die rolling in the game. Primarily, I think, because a lot of the die rolling is very repetitive.
So, serious gamers may not be entirely into the game, but then they're not the intended audience either. It's families who are, and for them I find Rum & Pirates a generally interesting game, though both I and other players have concerns that it might run too long for that category of players. But, we're not that category of gamers, so what can we say for sure?
L1: Ra. A+. (Plays: 15) [ Read my Review ]
L2: Chinatown. B-. (Plays: 1)
L3: Taj Mahal. A+. (Plays: 7)
L4: Princes of Florence. A. (Plays: 4+) [ Read my Review ]
L5: Adel Verpflichtet. B. (Plays: 2) [ Read my Review ]
L6: Traders of Genoa. A+. (Plays: 3+) [ Read my Review ]
S1: Wyatt Earp. B+ (Plays: 2)
S2: Royal Turf. A- (Plays: 6)
L7: Puerto Rico. A+ (Plays: 11) [ Read my Review ]
S3: Die Sieben Weisen C (Plays: 1)
S4: Edel, Stein & Reich B- (Plays: 1) [ Read my Basari Review ]
L8: Mammoth Hunters B+ (Plays: 5) [ Read my Review. ]
S5: San Juan A+ (Plays: 32) [ Read my Review; plus Glory to Rome review. ]
L9: Fifth Avenue C- (Plays: 3+)
M1: Louis XIV B+ (Plays: 7) [ Read my Review ]
M2: Palazzo B- (Plays: 6)
L10: Rum & Pirates B (Plays: 3)
I think I was actually supposed to play Augsburg 1520 next, but they came out the same year (2006), so no big ...
And I just discovered that the next big box game is Stefan Feld too! It's called Macao and it'll be lucky #13.
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Date: 2009-09-28 06:36 pm (UTC)and condolences on Cobweb.
It can be hard, but knowing that your pets are happy in their final days is always worth the time.
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Date: 2012-02-08 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-19 11:40 pm (UTC)