Jan
28
Head-to-head session at Library 10
Filed Under 1960: Making of the President, Caylus Magna Carta, Session | 1 Comment
Me and Rafa had a session of two player games at the Library 10 today. Sunday is a gaming day for the gaming club which gatheres at the Library but recent weeks have been really quiet because there haven’t been too many players around. I sincerely hope that spring brings with it not just sunny days but also a few players.
We bagan with
Caylus Magna Carta which was one of the most interesting games of the year 2007. Rafa had not played it before but rules aren’t problem with Caylus MG – they can be tought rather easily. Most of the two player games I’ve played have been struggling either with money or resourses (or both) and our game wasn’t different. Rafa made poor move in the beginning and I didn’t hesitate to exploit it. Situation on the board remained unchanged for most of the game which suited me fine because I had the initiative. Rafa build a quarry a bit too late to come back in the game and I scored a win with 35 points. Points came from the castle since I build only one building in the game.
The second game we had time to play was
1960: Making of the President and history repeated itself – Kennedy won with a huge margin. Rafa had not played the game before so he made some pretty awful mistakes during the game and made my game much easier. Although 1960:MofP is a card game and there is luck involved it’s really hard game for the first timers. The amount of cards is tantalizing and newbies tend to forget the nuances of the mechanics also and this was just what happened. The end score of 415 Kennedy against 83 Nixon confims that I have a point here… 
Anyways, I promised to give Rafa another try after he have had time to digest the game and suppose Kennedy is not going to wlak through the elections as easily as he did today.
Jan
27
Man I got beaten today
Filed Under Notre Dame, Session, Sleuth, Wizard | Leave a Comment
Quite typical gaming night at my place; Janne, Nasu and I. This time we played games everyone had played before which actually has never happened before if I remember correctly. First game was
Notre Dame which I like bacause it’s reasonably fast especially with three and still it offers very interesting choises throughout the game. This time I didn’t have any hold on my game and I suffered from serious rat problems. Cards just didn’t come in the order I expected and there was not a way to generate even a moderate amount of points. 46 points and second place (I won the tie-brake against Janne) wasn’t an uplifting experience but it ended up being the best performance of the evening.
After Notre Dame we continued with
Sleuth, a deduction game wher players try to
solve a mystery of missing gem. I got Sleuth from the Secret Santa and have been more than happy of the gift; I’m amazed that I find the game interesting although deduction is not my favorite mechanic in a game. My beginning hand did not have any green cards which made the start a bit difficult and while there weren’t any investigator cards on the table which would have revealed whereabouts of the green gems I didn’t have a shot on finding out the missing gem. Not that it mattered that much because I still had loads of fun.
The last game of the night was
Wizard and man this was a game where I got slaughtered – 20 rounds and I
got minus points 50% of the rounds. Keeping up the promises was insanely hard with three players and a lot of cards in your hand especially when we promised to take uneven amount of tricks that were available. I have to say that I prefer Wizard with 5 or 6 players because estimating the right amount of tricks won is considerably easier that with only three players. I suppose I had positive amound of points in the end although it was quite close. Hopefully next game of Wizard turns out to be better for me.
Jan
23
Lautapelisuomi – Kinkkucon 2008
Filed Under Lautapelisuomi, Podcast | Leave a Comment
LATAA -
TÄSTÄ- LAUTAPELISUOMI – KINKKUCON 2008
Tässä jaksossa seuraavaa:
Johdanto
Kinkkucon 2008
Markku “ Joelamer” Jaatisen toimittama paketti Kinkkuconin tapahtumista johdannon ja loppukommenttien kera.
- Kinkkuconin järjestäjän (Mikko “ mazikainen” Asikainen) haastattelu
- Turnausvoittajien haastattelu (veljekset Tuovinen)
- Lasten aamun järjestäjän haastattelu (Arttu “ aih” Häyhä)
- Tuomas “ kj869” Riekkisen haastattelu
- Matias “ mazku” Viitasalon haastattelu
Lautapelisuomi -kilpailu
Ensimmäisen Lautapelisuomi -kilpailun tulosten julkaisu:
Oikeat vastaukset tulivat tällä kertaa Henrik Fagerströmiltä, Tuomas Riekkiseltä, Henri Salmiselta sekä mIDEltä.
Oikein vastanneista Finanssinero -pelin voitti mIDE. Onnea voittajalle!
————————————————————————————————–
Tuhannet kiitokset Markku “Joelamer” Jaatiselle Kinkkucon materiaalin nauhoittamisesta sekä materiaalissa haastateltaville henkilöille. Kiitokset myös kilpailuun vastanneille.
Palaute on tervetullutta ja pyrin ottamaan sen huomioon tulevia jaksoja suunnitellessani. Etenkin kilpailua koskeva palaute on erityisen arvokasta. Kiitokset myös Eminorille ja Mikko Putkoselle
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Jan
18
N-BCG on 15th of January
Filed Under Goldland, Santiago, Session, Wizard | Leave a Comment
I was able to participate the weekly meeting after my holidays which was great. We began with
Wizard, a trick taking game where every player has promise how many tricks he/she is going to take in the current round. In the first round players have only one card in their hand, in the second two and… There’s four colours and cards from 1-13 and also a trump color in each round (with few exceptions) and the player who leads the trick desides which color everyone is playing. If you don’t have the color then you can throw in card from some other colour. And there are also four jokers and wizards in the game. Joker is basically worth 0 and has no colour and wizard is highest card and colourless as joker. Wizard is relatively simple game but is still enjoyable. The biggest minus is that games tends to last quite long but if you adjust the amount of rounds played (like just the odd rounds) it shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
The second game of the night was
Goldland which is a game by Wolfgang Kramer from 2002. There is something special in the exploration games and Goldland is not an exeption. In Goldland players build the board by turing tiles and then gather different recourses which can be used to obtain points. Game felt much like Lost Valley and there are some similarities in them. Goldland is maybe a bit easier and does not have as many components as LV but on the other hand LV is a bit more complex and offers more ways to victory. Anyways I lostmiserably because the other two were building things together and I went on by myself.
Last and coolest game of the night was Santiago by Claudia Hely and Roman Pelek. Santiago is a game where players bid on different sort of field tiles and try to water their property. First there is a one round open auction round for the tiles where winner chooses the first tile. Players can pass but doing so means that they don’t necessarely get any field tiles for themselves. The one who bids the least is the next overseer for the second phase. After acquiring the fields players place them on the board and the larger the field the more money it accumulates in the end.
In the second phase players try to water their fields by building pipelines. Players deside where they would like the pipes to be build and offer a bribery to the overseer. Other players can join in the project or start their own and in the end overseer chooses which project is finished and takes the bribes for that project. Overseer may also build pipeline to a direction he/she chooses with a cost of one money more than the highest bribe on a competing project.
Santiago proved to be very entertaining game. There is a lot of interaction and nasty decisions that have a direct impact on the plans of the others players. I also like the mechanics where there is a clever auction system and a balancing mechanic for the auction.
In our game I ended up third after some really stupid moves in the last round. I had the choise of taking the role of oveseer in the last round which I definitely should have taken and it probably would have been enough for a win. The second bad move came when I placed my tile on the board and it cost me probably the second place. But I still had loads of fun and I have to apologise to
Phil for couple of nasty bids which basically screwed up his game. Sorry Phil! 
Jan
14
Wow it’s good to be back home!
Filed Under Coloretto, Finanssinero, Industria, Session | Leave a Comment
My year began with a little trip to Barcelona. No gaming what so ever but lots of good weather and great atmosphere of a really cool city. So when I came back it definitely was time for some gaming and so I gathered the usual three and me gaming group aroun me at my place.
Before my three comrades where all there we took a quick session of
Coloretto, a clever and easy card game by Michael Schacht. Coloretto is a game where players try to gather as many cards of the same color as possible and gain points from the cards collected. The trick is that you score positive points only from your three best colours and the others colors give you negative points. Sounds easy and that’s what it also is; a good game before the more meatier games of the night.
The second gam which we started when the group was assembled was
Finanssinero. Finanssinero is a
game designed by a Finnish company Gambit Games. I had tried with two players and was eager to try it with more players. Finanssinero is all about trading stocks in the Finnish stock exchange thereby increasing the wealth from the initial capital. There is a buying phase where every player gets to choose one stock (from 6 different categories) for auction and then players make bids for exactly 15 seconds (there is a timer in the game). After every purchase the prices of the stocks change hence creating activity in the market.
After every player has got a chance to choose a stock (players can by more than one stock in a round) comes the second phase of the game which is the selling and playing the tip cards. Every player has from 1 to 4 tip cards in his/her hand and up to 2 of those can be played. Cards can give you money, they can be used to affect the prices of the stocks etc. Player can also deside to sell stocks in the selling phase and as with the buying phase players have exactly 15 seconds time to choose which tip cards to play and which stocks to sell. After the 15 seconds players play first the tip cards and then sell the stocks (and sometimes the price of the stocks have changed radically because of the tip cards as we experienced). After every 4 rounds players collect dividend from their stocks and game lasts 8 rounds.
Finanssinero is a good game in its category. Game has interaction, no down time due the simultaneous actions, it does not take too long to finish and it depicts rather nicely the atmosphere of the real exchange of stocks. It isn’t a simultation of a real stock market but it doesn’t claim to be one. And there is realtively much luck involved but, whatever the gurus say, there is luck involved in the timing of the deals in the real exchange of stocks in the real life.
The third game we played was
Industria by (surprisingly) Michael Schacht. This game had been a long time in my shelf unplayed but I decided that it was time for Industria to be crossed of from my unplayed games of the collection. The game it self is a clever bidding game where players bid on factories, technologies, bonus tiles and resources and build them as the game progresses. Money is a really scarce resource in the game and everything requires money which basically forces players to optimize the usage of their money.
Game was interesting and the bidding mechanic was nice (first player decides what is going to be auctioned and in the end can decide either to take the good or let the highest bidder to take it and pay for the auctioner). Still game was somehow slow paced and didn’t have too much direct player interaction. Definitely a game I’ll play again but not the gem of the kind of games it represents.
Jan
2
LATAA - TÄSTÄ- LAUTAPELISUOMI -KATSAUS MENNEESEEN 2007
Tässä jaksossa seuraavaa:
Uutiset
- Kinkkucon 2008 4.1.-6.1.2008; käy tutustumassa tapahtumaan tapahtuman kotisivuilla!
TOP 5 pelatut pelit 2007
Haastattelu
- Markus Kevin / Gambit Games
Lautapelisuomi kilpailu
- Tunnista 10 kuvaa ja lähetä vastauksesi minulle 16.1.2008. Kuvat löytyvät täältä.
Kiitokset jälleen Eminorille ja Putkosen Mikolle!
Voit lähettää palautetta osoitteeseen cane(ät)boardgamingfinland.com tai jättää kommentin tähän viestiin. Palaute on erittäin tervetullutta!
Seuraava jakso julkaistaan tammikuun puolivälin jälkeen, kun olen palannut hyvin ansaitulta lomaltani Barcelonasta. Hyvää uutta vuotta kaikille ja toivottavasti vuosi alkaa mainioiden pelihetkien merkeissä!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download