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Recently played games

Ropecon was held last weekend in Otaniemi, Espoo (Finland). I’ve been participating in it for the last few years and was lucky to be able to show up this year also (lucky because we’re expecting a baby to pop up soon). Convention has originally been a place for roleplayers but nowadays there’s also a lot boardgaming and cardgaming going on from start to finish. This year Ropecon had asked Friedemann Freese as a guest of honor which meant that there was a couple of lectures by Friedemann as well as a lot of his games to be played.

In general I had a lot of fun and it was great to see all the buddies from the Finnish Boardgaming Society, who travel to cons and that’s the place where I can meet them regularly. Obviously I played a lot of games and here’s my thoughts on the ones I had not played before.

The Magic Labyrinth

First game of the con and a game that has just been published in Finnish. I didn’t know anything about the game and was pleasantly surprised. Memory game with a cool gimmick definitely works with children and adults alike and should be fun to play with the family. This is the sort of game for children which I enjoy and appreciate.

Hornet

Hornet is an interesting game which has been in works for a long time. I actually played the prototype of the game last year in Ropecon and was glad that the was finally out. I also had just made an interview with the designers of the game, had great time interviewing and obviously my expectations were high.  I got to play the game 2 times; first on Friday night with Friedemann and two friends from the Society and second time on Saturday with one listener of my podcast and his buddies.

There’s a lot of good things in Hornet and I especially like the art. Mechanics are also sound and typically I’m a sucker for area control games which is one of the main mechanisms of Hornet. The second major mechanism is revealing action card simultaneously which adds bluffing to the game. This is the part of the game I’m not too fond of while it makes the game unpredictable but probably fun with families. Modular game board and scoring which is different each time are bonuses which add to the replay value of the game.

While I think Hornet is a solid design I still feel that there’s something missing from it; it could feel a tad more unique.  Hornet is an ok game but unfortunately not much more in my books.

Eclipse (prototype)

I had played the game before the con but as Eclipse is not a published game there had been some changes in the game since I had played it. Eclipse is a space exploration and management game which reminds me of one of the best PC games Master of Orion. Each player controls a race which sets out to the galaxy. Players explore and colonize the galaxy, fight against aliens and themselves and research new technologies which enable them to be more efficient in managing their galactic empire. I think Eclipse is the most promising proto I’ve seen in the Finnish circles and I truly hope that it finds a publisher even though it’s definitely not the easiest game to sell to a publisher.

Our game had 6 players which meant that it was epic in scale and playing time. I enjoyed the game and felt satisfied regardless of the fact that I did not win the game. Epic in a good way for me is that you’ve played a long game after which you still feel that you’ve accomplished  something and want to give the game another go. Eclipse with 6 players did it for me.

Mole Hill

I played the new(ish) edition with a pencil case look and must say that I liked the production quality of the game. Otherwise Mole Hill is a filler Knizia abstract. It’s simple and elegant but not as compelling as the best Knizia abstracts on the market. I’d gladly play the game again but feel no need to purchase it.

Industrial Waste

Clever and simple optimization game with solid mechanisms and a theme which fits the mechanisms. We played with three and I would have liked to have a fourth player to bring more competition to the game. I also feel that a few plays more would be in place to access the game better but my initial reactions were positive.

Ninety Nine

A card game by David Parlett which is played either with 36 card deck (three players) or 52 card deck (with 4 players). We played the game right after enjoying pizzas at the convention restaurant. 99 is a trick taking game in which players first bid the number of tricks they try to win using three cards of those they were dealt. Then players may reveal their bid or play with open cards to increase the points they get (or lose) and finally players play the ten tricks to see who got it right and who scores the most points for the round. Clever trick taking game which is playable with normal 52 card French deck – there’s never to many of those.

Odin’s Table

Before I go to the game itself I have to say that I hate it when designers are giving a 10 rating in the BGG for a game they’ve designed. 10 rating goes without saying but are you not a little bit biased to give the game a rating? I say yes and you shouldn’t do it since it just looks bad!

The game itself is a mix of two player abstract strategy, bluffing and card counting in a rather fast forward baggage. The board of the game is a 5 x 6 grid and the object of the game is to move three of your markers to opponents end of the board. On your turn you move one of your markers one space and if you end up in a same spot with the opponent where’s going to be a fight. Fighting introduces the bluffing part of the game because each column of the grid has a hidden card (cards rank from 0 to 9 and both players have similar decks) attached to it from both players. Defender reveals the card of the column where his marker currently is and attacker reveals card of the column where his marker came from, they are simultaneously flipped and the player who has higher card wins the battle (in case of a tie the attacker wins the battle) and removes marker of the defeated player from the board.

I normally like two player abstracts but the games I tend to play don’t have as high luck factor as Odin’s Table. I felt that the game is too random for my taste and in order to somehow mediate randomness I should have counted the cards which would have taken away the little fun I had with the game.  There’s bluffing of some sorts involved in the game and those who like bluffing games will probably enjoy Odin’s Table and as a short filler I could play it again a few times. Unfortunately there’s such a huge variety of more interesting games to play that I fear I won’t find Odin’s Table on my table anytime soon.

Bamboleo

Bamboleo was just published in Finland and it looked extremely cool. In this abstract players take pieces from a wooden disc which stands on a not so well balanced stick. Players get points for the pieces they’ve removed from the disc and round ends when disc and remaining pieces fall from. Not the best dexterity game there is but looks gorgeous and is definitely fun to play.

Chateau Roquefort

I’ve wanted to try this game out for a while and now I had the chance to do so. Chateau is a game where players try to find cheese from a castle with their mice. Gorgeous components combined with a fun theme and solid mechanics form a good children’s game (for a little bit older children) which is also fun for the adults.

Games I played which I had played before

• Dixit (excellent game with 5-6 players, otherwise a good game)
• Notre Dame (excellent game with any number of players)
• Power Struggle (I love the game but it should be played with at least 4 players)

Conclusion

Lots of games, lots of fun. I hope I’ll be able to participate next year but with the new challenges I’m facing I can’t be sure of that.

The annual gathering at Finnish game publisher Competo was held last weekend. Competo is a pioneer of hobby games in Finland and they have been active in publishing Finnish designs in recent years. The members of the Finnish Board Game Society have been invited once a year to play games and this time we had very good roster of games to pick from;  Finnish designs Tori and Toscana as well as some other new releases which are not yet published in Finland.

Events are also a meeting point for board game enthusiasts and there’s interesting discussions going on in sauna between the games. This year was no different and we had long and deep conversations on the current situation of the industry in Finland. You can always play games but there’s seldom time to meet the people and chat with them these days.

Obviously I also got some games in. The first game I played was Tori, which is a brand new 2010 release from Competo and designer Kimmo Sorsamo. I’ve already know the game pretty well since I took part in the design process but I enjoy the game nevertheless. Tori is a game of hand management and area control where players expand their businesses in the main market place of Helsinki during the 1952 Olympics and gain points by doing so. There’s lot of interaction in the game while players try to block each other and typically games tend to be tight. Ours was not different and it ended in 12-11-11-3 situation after we had revealed our secret point cards. Unfortunately I did not have 12 points…

After sauna I sat to play Savannah Tails which is a sequel to 2008 hit Snow Tails which I played and thought it as a good design but not much more. Savannah Tails is a card driven racing game which is even lighter than it’s predecessor. It’s quick and easy to teach and play but I felt that it didn’t have the depth nor the re-playability value I wish for a game. Definitely a solid game to introduce to non-gamers but there’s a myriad of better games out there even in the racing game category.

The last game of the night was Hotel Samoa which is a 2010 release Huch & Friends. I have to admit that I had probably taken a beer to mush to really understand the subtle nuances of the game and made it easy for the others to beat me in the game. But I did not like the game too much even though it’s been produced with care, there’s some interesting mechanics and it’s definitely playable with non-gamers. In it’s core Hotel Samoa is just a light blind bidding game and I just don’t enjoy these games too much.

It was a very enjoyable Saturday night with games and games related stuff and hopefully I’ll be able to participate event also next year!

Last weekend was huge gaming-wise as it always is when 7-8 people sit 11 hours playing the same game. Nowadays one might think that one has to be crazy to willingly participate in such event but for me playing Advanced Civilization once in a while is pure joy. This time we played in Tampere and there were 7 enthusiasts (of which 3 had not played the game before) to populate the ancient Europe.

I draw Egypt as my civilization which was great after two games with Crete. Egypt offers a bit different challenge and is definitely less challenging in the beginning of the game. My initial strategy was to expand rapidly and secure a position which would be sufficient for the rest of the game. My strategy worked rather nicely partly because I had newbies on both sides and they didn’t quite grasp the importance of expanding the land area immediately.

After getting the areas I wanted I went for Engineering Civ card since Egypt lies on the Nile delta and flood would have been devastating. Getting a set of trade cards was easier that I expected but this was also due to the fact that newbies could be exploited in the trade process. Trading is the most important part of a game of Advanced Civilization and you learn the tricks of trade by playing the game.

We had quite peaceful game which happens when you play with Western Expansion with only seven players. Obviously there were a few devastating catastrophes for some of the civilizations but Egyptians survived without worst disasters (famine – epidemic combo was nasty though). I was leading the game three rounds before the end but didn’t have the maritime power to conquer cities in the last few rounds and suffered a few attacks on my shores as well (which meant that I lost trade cards in the process). Second place after 11 hours of playing was satisfying and the emotion was stronger when I learned that the winner won with a high margin.

Advanced Civilization is a great game, and while there are many issues with the mechanics and playing time compared with the modern games, I really enjoy spending the time to play this epic game once in a while. Adv Civ is one of those games you enjoy playing even if you know that you’ll probably not be able to win the game anymore.

Second interesting, while totally different, game I had a chance to try was Haggis. Haggis is a climbing game played with 54 cards (2-10 in five suits plus 3 J,Q,K each as jokers) and I had read from the BGG that the game would be more of less Tichu for 2-3 players. I love Tichu and finding  a solution to fix the need for Tichu with less than 4 players would be great. Unfortunately Haggis is not Tichu even though the game itself seemed to be interesting.

Gameplay of Haggis is as in most of the climbing games and is thus relative close to Tichu or Gang of Four. The most interesting and innovative mechanic of the game is that each player gets three jokers which can be used as bombs and they are dealt face up in front of each player. Players can use these cards as a part of set or sequence as well but doing so means that players looses the opportunity to play bombs. First player to go out scores 5 points for each card the player with the most cards has in his/her hand at the moment plus the points in the tricks won. Scoring is thus a combination of Gang of Four and Tichu.

I liked the game and am willing to play more but Haggis is not Tichu. For me Tichu is a partnership game and there isn’t partnership involved in Haggis. But Haggis is great choice if you want to introduce someone to climbing games or you have only 2-3 players to play a climbing game.

Haggis is at the moment out of print but you can find the rules from BGG and modify Sticheln deck to fit your needs

Thursday night reserved for games in Leppävaara and this time I was also able to join the club and play some games.

First I sat down on a table where half of the people were preparing for the European Championships in Spiel. We played Diamonds Club which I had played once before and had liked it and I even remembered how to play the game. Diamonds Club is like Japanese whisky; it’s clean and perfectly balanced but it doesn’t have same character as the best of the games in its genre. It tastes good but you know that there’s better drams waiting for you out there.

After Diamonds Club I ended up reading the rules of Knizia’s Genial Spezial and playing it for the first time. Genial Spezial looks and feels like the original Genial. It also has some similarities, like scoring and shape of tiles used in the game, with its big brother but in the end it’ totally different game than the original Genial. I liked the game as I think most of the Genial friends would do but still I feel that this is just a way to profit from the Genial brand. Game would have deserved own identity; now it’s just a part of a growing lineup of Genial franchise.

The night ended with two games of Inquisitio at WilliamK (a bar next to the library the game club is held). Inquisition is an interesting game from a Finnish game designer Jani Rönkkönen produced by Tuonela Productions. It won the first prize in the Finnish Board Game Society’s game develop contest back in 2006 after which the designer has tried hard to find publisher for the game (even with the help of Bruno Faidutti). It took three years to find one from Oulu, Finland and end result is a deck of cards and few discs in a compact box.

Inquisitio is a game where players are accused of different sins in the medieval Europe waiting for their turn to be tortured by the Inquisition. One can easily understand why it was so hard to find someone to publish the game – the theme is really extreme and it’s well incorporated in the game.

What happens in the game is basically this: players are lined up in front of the torture room to be taken in. The choice of who’s going in the room depends of the bribe the character is willing to pay for the Interrogator and as the man gets greedy the others will have to pay more to avoid the room. Unfortunately someone doesn’t have the money to bribe the interrogator and he’ll be dragged into the room to be tortured. Before your head is put in a head press or they cut one of your body parts of you have an option to confess your sins, even though you might not have done anything, and avoid being tortured. If you don’t, you’ll fall into the worst nightmares one could imagine, suffer mental and physical damage and are left with marks of torture on your body which can (and will) be used against you later on. Obviously, if you’re the one the Inquisition finds to be most guilty for the crimes you will be burned at the stake in front of a cheering audience.

All above is executed with cards in a clever way. Players have money and features in their hands and first they try to avoid the torture chamber with money. Interrogator and torture method are also face up and from the interrogator card one can see which features the interrogator looks after and for which sin he accuses players of. The player who ends up to be tortured has to reveal all features in his hand which are similar to those shown in the interrogator card. After revealing the cards he receives money and has a choice of either to be tortured or to confess. Torturing causes damage and weakens player’s chances to win the game and confessing makes character more guilty and he might end up being burnt at the stake (and loosing the game).

Sometimes it’s good to confess though because:

a) you suffer less damage while they don’t torture you

b) the other players who have confessed the same sin before you become more quilty when you confess

c) you get to point a finger to one of the other players and accuse him for one of the features in the game. If he has cards of that feature in his hand he must reveal them and suffer from the increased guilt points in the end of the game.

So it might not be such a bad idea to confess after all but the problem with this is that in the end you score points for all the interrogator cards that have lead to a confession.

In our game we confessed every sin that came upon us; whether it was witchcraft or blasphemy we were guilty (and probably this would have been the case in the real life too since non of us probably would want to try out any of the torture methods). In the end the there were a lot of guilt points awarded because of the several sins confessed and huge amount of features in the interrogator cards on the table which also generated points.

Luckily I avoided the worst combinations and did not have the most guilt points; the two lucky players who tied the most guilt points were burned alive. Of those who survived the Inquisition I had the most mental and physical stamina left and I won the game (probably in real life I would have also had the best chance to recover from the horrors of the torture chamber).

Was I happy to win the game? Well, sure but more than that I was happy to be alive.

Was the game any good? Sure, it’s solid game, there’s interesting mechanics in it and it has a strong theme to support the game play.

Why am I so disturbed then? One could not play without thinking of the real thing and at least for me it raised some disturbing images in my head. We laughed at someone being tortured and damaged by an interrogator because, in the context we played in, it was funny. But there are some things you don’t want to play with and torture is quite high on that list, at least for me.

Learn your history before you play Inquisio because it helps you to appreciate the theme and the fact that there’s absolutely nothing fun or good in torture even though the game itself can be entertaining.

It’s been a long time since the last entry -I apologize. I’ve played games but most of the gaming has happened online so there’s really not that much to report on.

Thus it was fun to have some friends over and play games; especially because I just received fall lineup for Tuonela Productions to review. They have three new card games which all look promising after quick glance on the rules.

We began the night with Politix while one of my friends is active in the field and we always get laughs out of it. Politix is a decent game; it’s quick to play, one gets table talk out of it and there’s even some depth and tactics in it. Obviously it’s nothing for the die hards of gamers games but I rather like it and I’m willing to play it at least with friends who I know will like the game and the theme.

I ended up the the left wing of the political map with Päivi and we squeezed I quite easy win over the right wing. Rightist forgot to secure voters from farmers fraction and lost the election handsomely.

The second game of the night was Tuonela’s and Ville Hankipohja’s Soul Hunters. Soul Hunters is a card game where players play events and soul hunters on the table to gather negative or positive influence. Influence is used to capture free souls by the players and the one who has captured the most when the game ends wins the game.

There’s a lot of different cards in the games and there’s definitely several paths to play the game and in my opinion that makes Soul Hunters interesting. In our game more choices unfortunately meant also more playing time and more down time for the players. Reading all the cards and trying to figure out how and when to use them is hard especially is any of the players is declined to AP.

The best part of the game is graphics which I really enjoyed. There’s different groups of soul hunters in the play and every group is easily recognizable because of the color scheme in the cards and also because of the pictures. It’s also extremely fun to table God to gather souls for you when the other players have devils and cultists and even aliens on the table.

Soul Hunters appears to be interesting game and I’m keen on testing it more. If playing time can be reduced to the 60 minutes stated in the box, Soul Hunters is a winner but if 4 player game takes more than 2 hours then there’s not enough content in the game.

It’s fun to play games and it’s even more fun to do it unexpectedly but this was the case in our little Tarot session in Wednesday night. My gaming pal Markku was in town because of his work and looked for something to do other than playing games in BSW (which by the way is a great way to spend time). We didn’t have much time to arrange the event but were lucky enough to have Janne to play with us.

As all three of us are seriously into card games it was no wonder that we immediately began to think of a card game for three. I suggested French Tarot which I had learned in Ropecon and found out to be fun and not overly complex Tarot game. Others had not played it and were willing to try this beast out.

French Tarot is played with 78 card French Tarot deck which I don’t own (ordered it though to avoid similar situation in the future). Luckily these games cand be played with others decks as long as there’s the same amount of cards in them and I had my 78 card Piemontese deck with Italian suits with me. Obviously this made the game a bit harder since none of us had played much with the Italian suits and figuring out what we had in our hands after the deal was rather hard.

The game itself is of moderate challenge. The trick taking part of the game is simple for those who have played any trick taking games before; one player plays against the others and tries to win enough tricks to score adequate amount of card points. What makes the game a little bit tougher that typical trick taking games is the auction of who gets to play. The amount of card points you have to win depends on the ends (tarot 21,0 and fool) you win from the tricks. To make the bidding a bit more challenging there’s also a dog of six cards on the table which you can use (in a way or another) if you win the auction. Typically you get the cards on the table and change some cards from your hand to those but there are other possibilities for the dog as well.

Bidding is quite harsh because if you win you get a number of points from the opponents and if you lose you pay the same amount of points to all of your opponents. This leads to a situation where failing a high bid can really ruin your game because you score a stupendous negative score. Janne basically tried this option in our game in the second deal and did not recover from it and helped me and Markku quite a bit since we got the points Janne lost.

I liked the game and hope to play it soon again. These games need experience to be most enjoyable and after one or two plays one can only feel that thay are great games if you master them well.

Summer has gone by really fast and I’ve been able to play some games. Interestingly many of the games have been cooperative and while there is nothing wromg with cooperation in games that’s not a mechanism which is very common in games in general. The last year has been great for cooperative games and there’s several good new cooperative games to try.

Pandemic has been high on my gaming list lately and it is a great game. It did’t win SdJ but I’m pretty sure it was the runner up for the prize. I’ve also played Ghost Stories a few times and have enjoyed the game even though it’s almost impossible to beat even in the lowest skill level.

Last night I got on the table two other interesting cooperative games that have been gathering dust on my game shelf. The first of the two was Reiner Knizia’s look at the Lord of the Rings saga as a boardgame which was one of the first cooperative games that caught the attention of the gamers in 2000. I bought the game in the summer of 2007 and had not played the game so it was about the time to test the game.

In the game players form the fellowship and head to the Mount Doom. Game is card driven and the idea of the game is to play cards and by doing so move the fellowship toward the final goal. Every player also has to draw tiles that typically hurt the fellowship but can also be quite neutral and there’s a board for character miniatures and Sauron miniature where members of the fellowship try to keep away from Sauron. There’s several ways to lose the game but only one way to win and ,as we noticed in our game, darkness is victorious in most of the games played.

I liked the game; it had the feel of the Lord of the Ring book, it was easy enough to play and it didn’t took too long. the fact that cooperative game is tough is ont a problem and adds playability in a longer perspective. The most disturbing part of the game was the rulebook which is hideous and it’s almost impossible to find information quickly from it.

The second interesting cooperative game of the night was  Battlestar Galactica which I had played maybe nine months ago and have had in my shelf for too long unplayed. Battlestar Galactica is based in the TV series of the same name and usually these franchises are plainly bad. There are some exceptions and this game is one of those.

In the game players are the members of Battlestar Galactica. As in the TV series, there are cylons among the crew but in the beginning none of the players now who they are. With four players there is a possibility to get two cylons in the game, one for the first half and second when the second half begins, but information of this is kept secret and that’s actually the biggest issue in the game.

There’s quite a few things I like in BG. Firstly, the aspect of having a traitor in the ship and the mechanisms that support this are absolutely cool. Players play cards together to resolve skill checks but while there’s two cards added to those played by the players the Cylon can really screw thing over. Having a traitor on board causes also a lot of interaction and table talk both of which I like very much.

BT has also I great feel of struggle in space and therefore the theme of the game works very well. I have not watched any of the Battlestar Gallactica seasons on TV so I don’t get any kicks out of the BG theme but it does not really bother me at all; the game is fun to play even if you are not familiar with the series and even more so if you are a fan of it.

There’s two negative things in the game: you need at least four people to play the game (preferably 5-6) and game takes at least 2 hours which makes it harder to play. Apart from these minor problems Battlestar Galactica is great game!

Our game ended when one of the non-cylon members of Galactica had to leave. Game had not taken huge amount of time at that point but I didn’t tell my friends that game could take long. This was sad because it looked so good for the humans. We had a cylon in the first half of the game (I actually believed that we didn’t) but he revealed himself just before the start of the second phase. Sadly for the Cylon side that second cylon card went to the cylon player thus creating a situation which would have been easier for the humans (only one cylon in the game compared to two).

I’m looking forward to play all of there games again and there’s still Space Alert in my shelf waiting to be played some time soon.

Merry Christmas all! I’ve had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and fortunately I got also some games in. This is especially great because my December has been nothing else than work and stress and there hasn’t been time for games nor the blog.

I’ll give my thoughts on some of the new releases I’ve played during the last few days and I’ll begin with the latest Ystari game Sylla. Ystari has brought some really quality games to the market such as Caylus, Yspahan and Mykerinos and company has good reputation. Thus Sylla was obviously on my radar when Ystari anounced it’s coming out in Essen. But what I have to say is that it definitely isn’t the best game in the Ystari line.

In Sylla players basically auction of turn order, workers and prestige buildings which makes Sylla pretty much an auction game. There’s actually also quite a few other mechanics involved but they are more in the background. The rules of the game weren’t good and we had to take a look at them all the time during the game. Sylla is also very mechanical game where player interaction is low and the game is somewhat repetitive because the rounds are always more or less similar to each another. I also feel that the game takes too long for what it is; not a deep strategy game but more of an medium heavy family game. We played probably over 2 hours which is twice as much as it should have taken.

I hope that Ystari can keep up the great record thay have with the games produced in the future. Sylla felt much like other Ystari games but it didn’t bring anything new with it and the old stuff had not been incorporated in the game in the best possible way.

The other auction game I played during Christmas delivered better the expectations that I had for it (which is much due to the fact that I didn’t have any). Byzanz is a Amigo Spiele card game which inevitably means that it’s a bit lighter than most of the board games on the market. We were a bit confused in the beginning with the game but got a hold on it rather quickly. In the game players try to form sets of cards same color to their hand by auctioning of cards. Interesting mechanic in the game is that players have to pay a single card for on top of the bid from those cards that are on sale and in the end of the round all the cards are given back to players. The players who bid first on the first phase gets more cards than the last player but the last player is the first one to pick cards of one color from those cards that have been used as money during the auction phase.

This mechanic doesn’t make game more strategic and there’s luck heavily involved but sometimes it offers possibility to some nice moves and that’s what makes the game interesting. I hope that I’ll be able to play thisone again sooner than later.

Castle for all Seasons is a totally different game from Sylla and Byzanz while it’s main mechanic is not auction. CfaS looks much like Stone Age and feels much like it too. Actually, it also plays very much like Stone Age eventhough there obviously are numerous dissimilarities in the game. In CfaS players gather resources (raw materials) and turn them into buildings and money using their workers. Players have eight different action cards and theres 12 rounds where player play one of those cards. Therefore CfaS is not a long game and there aren’t that many desicions in the game: all players gather first resources and then build. This also speeds up the game but might make it a bit dull in the end when you have played the game more.

CfaS had also a badly written rules which made it a bit hard to get the game going in the first place but after you’ve gotten a feel for the game it’s rather simple and streight forward. Components and board are also top notch with the small exception of the scoring markers that don’t fit in the scoring track too well.

I’ve played several of the games which were released in the Spiel 2008 fair and I have to say that the crop this year hasn’t been spectacular. Most of the games I’ve played are average (which is usually the case every year) but there hasn’t been any real hits this year for me. Dominion is probably the best game I’ve played this far and it is a good game but still a bit of from being an exellent game. Space Alert is also very promising but I have to play it more to give it the final judgement and the expansion for Galaxy Trucker is awsome (but not a complete game). What this means is that I probably should visit some of the old games in my shelf which I know I enjoy a lot and hope that next year will bring better games than this year

I’ve been able to get some games in lately and though that maybe I’ll share some views on the games which were published in Spiel 08.

I got Wasabi from Lautapelit.fi discount Saturday. The copy I got was played once by the store owners and they did not like the game. Usually one should probably take the advice and leave those games alone which brick and mortar store owner dislike, but because I’m more and more cultist of the cult of the new, I had to take the game.

As it turned out Wasabi is not at all as bad as I feared. It’s a tile laying game where players try to complete recipies with the ingredients players lay on the board. Components of the game are gorgeous thus making it alluring almost anyone and it’s also simple enough that non-gamers can play it without any problems. There are several ways to organize the tiles which mean that there’s also some tactical elements in the game. This is typically good but in this case it can result serious AP in some players which obviously is bad for the game. Anyways, Wasabi is a positive surprise – it’s not a spectacular game but a good addition to the lighter end of the board games and good to introduce games to non-gamers because of the theme.

Last night I had a possibility to try out Ghost Stories which is a new addition to the co-operative games. In Ghost Stories players play characters in a Anime inspired world were heroes are stong and posses super powers and creatures are ugly and there’s lots of them all over the place as we soon noticed in the game. The game itself is guite mechanical and theme feels a bit pasted on but we had lost of player interaction and we also really had to work together to solve all the problems we encountered. What also became obvious is that Ghost Stories is really hard game to win; our game ended probably halv way through and de definitely were not even close of winning. Interesting game which I definitely play more. I have my doubts on the replayability value of the game but assessing that is not possible with one play.

I also got a possiblity to try out Dominion (or Valtakunta as it’s in Finnish) and I have to say that I was positively surprised about the game. Usually games that get hyped are not the ones I like but Dominion proved to be different. It’s a card game where players build their decks from a general stock of cards and try to purchase victory points. I have been a addict of Magic the Gathering in my past and set building is a mechanic which is familiar to me. The biggest difference between Dominion and MtG is that in Dominion players have common stock of cards from which to build their decks thus making it more even for the players. As with most of the cards games there’s relatively high amount of luck in the game but skill and knownledge of the powers of the cards gives a huge advantage in the game. Interesting game and I hope that I get a chance to play it live some time soon again.

I had oppurtunity to spend 10 days in the US (DC and NYC) and tried to check out the board game scene in the middle of a rather busy schedule. My findings were that the amount and quality of games sold in the department and book stores is even poorer than in Finland. The selection of games in a typical Finnish store has been growing in the recent years and there’s usually few really good games available. This was not the case in the US where games were only for party purposes.

The second interesting fact is that I didn’t find any brick and mortar stores. Are majority of games sold online nowadays in the US and small game shops disappearing  from the scene? It certainly looked that way.

We didn’t play many games during the trip with my class mates but I introduced Coloretto for the group and we had fun with it. It had been a long time since I had played the game myself and lately I’ve been more into Zooloretto and Aquaretto which are both good games. I’ve been wondering if Coloretto has become totally obsolete now that we have board games with same mechanics and more depth but my fears were proven wrong – there is still room for light, fast, portable and fun card game eventhough I’m not going to play Coloretto too often in the future.

And special thanks goes to Phil whom I met randomly on the eve of the presidential election at Times Square; the only thing we missed was 1960: MotP. I sincerely hope that the atmophere which we experienced is going to stay there for some time.

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