Jul
23
Summer of cooperative games
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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.
Image by Dan Rosewater / BGG
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.
Image by Dean / BGG
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.
Image by Surya Van Lierde / BGG
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.
Jul
14
Tuonela Productions released a press release of their coming line up for the autumn 2009 and it looks very impressive. Three brand new games from Finnish designers; Modern Society, Soul Hunters and Inquisition. These games make already interesting year of games even more interesting.
I have not been able to get any additional information about the games but it seems like they all are targeted for families and are in a typical eurogame game length range (approx. 60 minutes). I hope I’m able to give you more information shotrly.
In the mean time you can read and learn more abuot the game from the Tuonela Productions blog.