An Insane Angle on a Word Game

"Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something very close to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing any definite structure or building, he dwells only on broad impressions of vast angles and stone surfaces - surfaces too great to belong to anything right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphs. I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the same thing whilst gazing at the terrible reality."
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

On a visit to the FLGS the other day (looking for Colosseum) I noticed the new Playroom Entertainment game, Unspeakable Words. Having spent 7 hours playing Arkham Horror against the kid only a week or two earlier, a 30 minute Cthulhu game sounded irresistible. Even better, it was a word game. Arkham Horror distilled to a 30 minute word game? I had to have it. Also, it was cheap.

The game is very simple. You make words out of letter cards. The letters contain angles - S has 0, M has 3, A has 5, etc. Making words with angles drives you insane. Try to get enough points to win without going insane due to loathsome redolence etc.

You have a hand of 7 cards and on your turn you may make a word or exchange your hand for a new one. You score the points for the letters in the word. In addition, you roll d20. If you roll less than the points for the word, you lose a point of sanity. Read that again - if you roll less, you go insane. So big words send you insane. Small words are safer. First to 100 points wins. To get to 100 points first you need big words, to avoid insanity (and its consequence, elimination) you need small words. Non-Euclidean, huh?

You start with 5 sanity points, which are, awesomely, little green Cthulhu figures. If you lose all 5 sanity points you're eliminated from the game. This can happen through bad luck or bad play, or both. Let's do the maths.

When you make a word worth n points you have (n-1)/20 chance to lose a sanity point. Let's do what statisticians do and say on average you lose (n-1)/20 sanity points to earn a score of n. As you're effectively using the cards to exchange sanity for points, you earn n / ((n-1)/20) points per sanity point, i.e. 20n/(n-1). As you start with 5 sanity points and need 100 points, and you must stay sane to win the game, you need to earn 25 points per sanity point. That suggests that n/(n-1) throughout the game should be greater than or equal to 5/4, i.e. your words should average 5 points or less. When an E is worth 5 points, that's hard work. Obviously big words are more dangerous and small words are safer. But then the luck factor gets involved.

Obviously any game will have some players who get lucky and some who don't. The luck swings in this game can be quite dramatic, and if there are 6 players you'd expect there to be a luckiest one and an unluckiest one. The likely winner of Unspeakable Words will be the player who best combines their skill with their luck. Some people can make lots of big words, rush to the lead and be eliminated, whereas others will ride their luck and win gloriously. That's life.

I'd like there to be a successful strategy to this game but I don't see that there is. I'd think you could make small words to be safe, and if you can make a very high scoring word, e.g. 25 points, go ahead and take the sanity hit. However my observations have been that the lucky player making medium (i.e. 12-17 point) words will win. That must be how she does it.

In any case, this is a fun game, from the very nice card art to the teensy weensy Cthulhu statues. It's great for kids, because if they can only make small words they can still do well - MET is worth 10 points but SOUS is worth 0. It's a great light game for gamers who can try to strategise and blame the dice when they lose. And most of all, it's a very funny nod to Lovecraft's genius, and a whole lot quicker than Arkham Horror.

Ooh, Nasty!

Last time Scrabblette was away I wanted to play Arkham Horror but somehow never found the time. This morning I got stuck in and did it. As with Runebound I played solitaire. In fact I only bought Arkham Horror after I found it could be played solitaire - I never had any ambition to play such a long game with other people, though the kid and I have played together. I actually had all of the bits set up last night but got involved in a book instead. That's one nice thing about playing a game by yourself - it can take as long as you like!

I decided to play two characters. I played one character once before and got quickly murdered. I chose to play Mandy Thompson (the researcher) and Carolyn Fern (the Psychologist), because if I'm going to play a game for hours I want to be looking at cute women, not irritating guys like that smug Bob Jenkins (the salesman).

The Ancient One was Nyarlathotep which convinced me I was going to lose straight away. Nyarlathotep causes the Mask monsters to be put into the cup, and those things are NASTY.

First of all, let me say that this game has a lot of rules. I'd venture to say it has way too many rules for one person to remember. I discovered about halfway through that every time the terror level increases one of the allies leaves town. I don't remember hearing that rule before. I spent the entire game forgetting to do things simply because each phase has so many steps and so many things you need to remember. Then the Mythos cards add environment effects and the details just go on and on. Does anyone else spend significant portions of this game trying to figure out what should have happened if only you'd remembered all the rules? I only remembered the characters had special powers after the general store had closed.

Let me say, Mandy Thompson was a god character. She had a gun, lots of clues, met up with an ally who gave her Speed +2 and found a magic sword as well. Once I realised she could reroll dice once per turn she was almost unstoppable. On the other hand, Carolyn Fern was pretty hopeless and managed to get herself cursed. She spent a lot of turns hiding from monsters that were far too dangerous. Towards the end Mandy Thompson cleared a path to the church and we managed to get her uncursed, but it was far too late by then.

Carolyn went to the woods to pick up clues and a gate opened underneath her. With significant effort she closed it but couldn't seal it, then another gate opened underneath her. She closed but couldn't seal that one as well. Mandy tried to gather some resources and then set about closing gates herself.

A variety of crappy effects resulted in us being delayed a lot, and being unable to collect clues for sealing fast enough meant that gates kept reopening after they'd been closed. A few bad Mythos events really caused havoc... the Southside Strangler strangled everybody in town, a massive horde of monsters escaped from the university, and we discarded a lot of clues to prevent all Elder Signs being removed from the board.

That's the thing about this game, and certainly something at succeeds at - things can always get worse, and they always do. Carolyn Fern was murdered by The Bloated Woman (one of the Mask monsters), then we had to discard all of our clues, then we got to terror level 10 meaning there were no monster limits, then ... even when you end up winning the game you've only just managed to struggle through a huge number of really awful events. It's just nasty from beginning to end.

The gates accumulated. The doom track neared its end. Mandy Thompson got Lost in Time and Space. The doom track hit its end, and we faced Nyarlathotep.

Start of Battle: Any investigator with no Clue tokens is devoured.

That was it. Just like that, we were devoured. Yum yum, thanks for playing.

So what had we achieved? We'd closed six gates, but only sealed four. Mandy Thompson had killed a heap of monsters. And that's all.

One thing that irks me about this game is how it's so difficult to achieve anything. For example, how do you join the Silver Twilight Lodge? You go there and hope to draw the right card. How do you get an Elder Sign? You go somewhere and hope to draw the right card. You just can't achieve those things on purpose. There seems to be so little purpose to going anywhere and doing anything because you almost always get some rotten result like "A gate opens". Oh fer chrissakes, as if there aren't enough gates open already! It just seems to be impossible to work towards anything. And even when you do get it, the stupid d6s find a way to take it off you anyway.

Oh well. I was doomed from the start and I knew it. The game does a great job of that. If only I was able to remember the rules, I'd enjoy being doomed so much more.

Trashing Ameritrash

My mum once told me "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all". I think at the time I'd been served curried sausages for dinner. Anyway, my personality is such that I was a whole lot quieter after that. But she never mentioned anything about blogging.

I've been watching the amazing events at BGG for the last few days and wondering what side of the argument I'm on. I like free speech, but I want people to shut up. I respect Aldie's decisions, I wish he didn't have to make them. I like Barnes' wit, I can see how he rubs people up the wrong way. But rather than go down that path too far I'm going to give honest opinions on games.

I can't tell you what Ameritrash is but I know it when I see it. Railroad Tycoon. Axis and Allies. Twilight Imperium 3. Many many games that I choose not to play. I'll admit it, I'm not a big fan of Ameritrash. Yes, I'm a Eurosnoot. So shoot me... with your tiny little plastic guns. I'm a mathematician at heart and I love to see mathematics at work. A Steiner triple system is mathematics, totalling the result of 2d6 is not.

BattleLore: I'm a fan of the Command and Colors system, rating each of them about an 8. Do they count as Ameritrash? It's hard to classify a game published by an American company that sells because of its tiny little plastic armies as anything else. So I have to admit I do like the C&C Ameritrash.

Railroad Tycoon: Takes way too long and isn't very interesting. The bizarre financial exploits of the 19th century railroad barons should be confined to history's shame file, not celebrated in games. I rate it a 4 because I was feeling kind that day.

Twilight Imperium 3: Takes way too long and isn't very interesting. The designer took some Euro ideas for this game but they didn't save it. Aimed at people who don't have a life, this game is completely unrewarding as you spend several hours building an economy so you can build space ships that you can lose with a dice roll. Only Americans can love this game - it gives them an opportunity to understand the Star Wars program. It's also aimed at people who think you should wage war just because you can... as opposed to Eurosnoots who know that you only engage in conflict if you expect to gain more than you lose, such as petrodollar hegemony for example.

Arkham Horror: As much as I aspire to despise all American culture, I often fail. Violent Femmes are awesome. House M.D. is awesome. H.P. Lovecraft is awesome. This game does a fine job of animating Lovecraft's milieu, and I admire it a lot. On the other hand, I try to avoid playing it against other people. It takes a very long time and you're at the mercy of the cards. It's also quite complex. I give it an 8, but I only want to play it as a solitaire game.

Heroscape: I bought a couple of sets of this because the bits are so cool and they were very cheap. We played once and even the kid didn't like it. Cool bits, no game. You've got to ask - are these people selling games or are they selling plastic? Of course Hasbro doesn't care. I gave it a 4.

Runebound: This game is similar to Arkham Horror in that I love the theme so much that I must play the game, but allowing other people to play as well would spoil it for me. I like to go off on a trip by myself... This is my favourite solitaire game and ... well just read my lengthy session report. I give the game an 8.5 at the moment, and I'm still buying expansions.

Nexus Ops: I only have time for one more item, so I'll make it a different one. I very much admire the design of Nexus Ops, I just didn't have fun playing it. I think the way VPs are awarded for small goals is very very good, much better than TI3, but I don't really want to play a game where I build stuff and then people trash it. It's too depressing. There's not enough maths. It's just being horrible to people, even though there is a good reason. I'm torn between disliking this game for that and admiring it for its success in achieving what it set out to do, so I sat on the fence and gave it a 6.

It seems the only Ameritrash games I like are those that play with 1 or 2 players. Sitting around a massive game board for 6 hours with people beating on me is just not my idea of fun. I'd rather play St Petersburg.

Hallowe'en Games

Scrabblette, the kid and I are going to a gaming Hallowe'en party on Saturday. What should I take?

The Arkham Horror - a very good game if you're willing to spend 3 hours or more. Theoretically I would have more hours than that, but can I depend on the concentration span of the players?

Lexicon, Scrabble, Boggle, Milleranagrams - good fun to play with Scrabblette and the hostess of the party.

The Great Dalmuti - a good party game, though Scrabblette isn't into card games so much. The host has a decent selection of party games.

PitchCar - always good for large groups, and will keep 8 players occupied.

Betrayal at House on the Hill - despite the bad rules, a great experience game. Not too long, and always interesting.

Fearsome Floors - I think it's about time we started playing with the advanced obstacles. Not a deep game, but one that allows good player interaction and takes a decent number of players without lasting too long.

Gloom, Unhappy Homes - I've owned the (first) expansion for a long time and never played it, so I think I'd better take it along.

Goosebumps - I have a selection of Goosebumps games, none of which I enjoy. So despite them being appropriate, I'll probably leave them at home.

Mystery Rummy - I have 3 of these games, all of which I like, but Scrabblette is not into card games. Can she be won over?

Nacht der Magier - What better Hallowe'en game than one that's played in the dark? I do like playing games in the dark with Scrabblette.

Any other ideas? Here's what I own.