My house is currently flooded with new games after my pusher from alternativegames.com.au visited Critical Mass last night. I bought Bridges of Shangri-La and Tikal from him. We're also still working through the pile that arrived from America. CyberKev (whom this blog is NOT about) also recently returned from America with a pile of new games. Everywhere you turn you trip over them. Anyway, here are the new ones I've got to play since the last update.
Gheos: I played this with Scrabblette and it was chaotic and vicious. Oh hang, it's me that was vicious, but the game was chaotic. If you (or your opponents) don't like "taking stuff off" games, stay away from this one. I'll need to play some more before I find a suitable audience for this one.
That's Life (Verflixxt!): CyberKev taught this at Critical Mass, and I'd just like to say "MEH". In capitals. It's a very dry game which could be analytical if I cared enough, but the die adds enough randomness that I couldn't be bothered. And what is the theme, anyway? Didn't interest me at all and I couldn't wait for it to finish.
Qwirkle: CyberKev also taught this at Critical Mass, and it was much much better than That's Life. It's best described as Scrabble without the letters which sounds stupid but when you play it you realise it's true. It has colours and shapes instead - sort of like Ingenious. As Scrabblette enjoys both Scrabble and Ingenious I suggested she'd like it and the generous and experienced CyberKev loaned it to me. She played it against the kid this morning and said she liked it a lot. Good news! I like it a lot. I wonder though if I've already seen the depths of the game. I expect it will be a solid 8 for me.
Fiji: We dragged Fiji off the pile of new toys this evening and gave it a run. It's a very very chaotic auction game which reminded me of Fist of Dragonstones and Nobody But Us Chickens. It's probably too chaotic to take it seriously, but it's cute.
Alexandros: After the kid flogged us at Fiji, Scrabblette and I banished him and played Alexandros. This is a dry almost abstract which is very much Scrabblette's style. It reminded me of Gheos in that there was "taking stuff off people", but it was nowhere near as chaotic. Scrabblette got a good lead and I found myself having to learn new dirty tricks to catch up. For example, I sent Alexander halfway across Asia Minor to excise a small piece of land from her territory. Sadly, Scrabblette had learnt from her experience at Gheos, and was very good at taking stuff off me. It was a very close game, but she won 103 to 99. I like Alexandros a lot as well.
Showing posts with label Fist of Dragonstones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fist of Dragonstones. Show all posts
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Two New Games that Feel Old
OzGamer came along to BookRealm last night with a box of games, and probably felt a bit like the new dog at the dog park - we all ran up to him and sniffed his... oh hang on, that's a bad analogy. I mean I wanted to play all his games. There were 6 of us, and the best I could offer was Citadels but OzGamer had Fist of Dragonstones which I hadn't played, so we played that first. As it turns out, it plays a lot like Citadels anyway with those annoying auction thingies. Plugh. It took a couple of rounds to know what to expect from the standard characters, and by that time we understood the value of the black coin as well. Then we got serious.
Trevor had managed to score 2 points in the first round (before we figured out why the black coin was vital), so I was way behind. Then coming second in a bid for the thief cost me a stone, and I wasn't looking good at all. I started by setting small goals - get a red stone this round, convert 3 different coloured stones to a point. RealmKeeper liked taking the black coin, and could be trusted to prevent Trevor from winning the game. I went in hard on the character which allows you to buy stones, and got myself a decent stock at the expense of my bank. I was able to get to 2 points, but then had no stones left. With multiple players on 2 points, and several with stones, those of us who couldn't win needed to be on top of our game to prevent anyone else from winning. However we blinked and OzGamer managed to defeat us all.
Next game we played was Lowenherz. I'm a big fan of Domaine, so I was interested in trying it out. Trevor had played Domaine, and OzGamer had played Lowenherz, so only Walter was really new to the game. We used the quick set-up, which felt like cheating, but since so many things were different in this game we at least were granted decent start positions. It's sort of different - the mines work significantly differently, the cities are more valuable - but it's also very much the same. I made a big move towards the end which put me a mile in front, and made me a huge target. So I got shot down. Trevor couldn't catch up so just made life miserable for people (mostly me). I was pinning my hopes on 12 victory points in political cards in my hand, but after being raped pillaged and plundered by Trevor and Walter I could only manage to come equal second with Walter, both of us behind OzGamer.
I didn't really like the auction phase - I don't know how much things are worth, and I can't tell whether I'm making a decent move. In Domaine you just need to assess the risk of someone taking a card you sell and using it against you. I find Domaine less lucky and more analytical, so it's more my style.
Trevor had managed to score 2 points in the first round (before we figured out why the black coin was vital), so I was way behind. Then coming second in a bid for the thief cost me a stone, and I wasn't looking good at all. I started by setting small goals - get a red stone this round, convert 3 different coloured stones to a point. RealmKeeper liked taking the black coin, and could be trusted to prevent Trevor from winning the game. I went in hard on the character which allows you to buy stones, and got myself a decent stock at the expense of my bank. I was able to get to 2 points, but then had no stones left. With multiple players on 2 points, and several with stones, those of us who couldn't win needed to be on top of our game to prevent anyone else from winning. However we blinked and OzGamer managed to defeat us all.
Next game we played was Lowenherz. I'm a big fan of Domaine, so I was interested in trying it out. Trevor had played Domaine, and OzGamer had played Lowenherz, so only Walter was really new to the game. We used the quick set-up, which felt like cheating, but since so many things were different in this game we at least were granted decent start positions. It's sort of different - the mines work significantly differently, the cities are more valuable - but it's also very much the same. I made a big move towards the end which put me a mile in front, and made me a huge target. So I got shot down. Trevor couldn't catch up so just made life miserable for people (mostly me). I was pinning my hopes on 12 victory points in political cards in my hand, but after being raped pillaged and plundered by Trevor and Walter I could only manage to come equal second with Walter, both of us behind OzGamer.
I didn't really like the auction phase - I don't know how much things are worth, and I can't tell whether I'm making a decent move. In Domaine you just need to assess the risk of someone taking a card you sell and using it against you. I find Domaine less lucky and more analytical, so it's more my style.
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