New Games Played at ConVic

ConVic is a weekend-long games convention hosted by unhalfbricking.com in Melbourne twice a year. Scrabblette, the kid and I went down for the weekend - the third time that the kid and I have been. Every time we go we have a better time as we know more of the people from the previous time and are less stressed about dealing with Melbourne :-). This post is about the new games played on our trip, but I would like to mention what great guys brendanm, karlsen and aaronseeber are for giving us lifts around town.

Tier Auf Tier - For some reason I was enchanted by the pictures of this game and imagined it would be super fun. Instead, it was just a bit ho-hum. I tried my best to make life difficult for my opponents, but the structure seemed to be a bit more stable than made for a good game. However if a cute little kid asked me to play with them, I would.

Ingenious: Travel Edition - Scrabblette demanded that I buy this when we were visiting Mind Games in Swanston St. It is a lot more convenient than the big box of the standard game, and we played while waiting for dinner in an Italian restaurant. The scoring track could be better - sliders would have been much nicer.

Streetcar - I played a 6 player game of this which lasted a bit too long for my tastes, but with fewer players I think it would be OK. It seems to be very much my sort of game, but I found the other players interfered with every plan I tried to hatch, and I just got frustrated. Scrabblette says I should buy it, I say I might when I've learned to like it.

Flaschenteufel - I have played this before, but we used the wrong rules. We USED to play that whoever had the bottle scored all of their points negative, which meant people regularly spent the whole game negative. This time we played that only the kitty scored negative, which didn't scare Brendan at all as he manipulated the cards so as to claim the last 5 or so tricks, and the kitty was a minor inconvenience in comparison. THAT obviously wasn't right either. aaronseeber suggests that maybe the bottle means you score negative for the kitty and nothing for your tricks. We'll try that next time.

Himalaya - I've played this before as well - the first game I every played against CyberKev, and I remembered it fondly. This time I remembered that the other players kept ruining perfectly sensible plans, and my opinion of it dropped a little.

Axiom - aaronseeber was the brave man who tried to understand the rules of this game and explained it to me. It certainly is a brain-burner. We spent a few turns discussing what good and bad moves were. Then Darren came along and started discussing with Aaron how best to beat me. When they missed a potential attack by me I decided to win while I still could and claimed the victory to their shock. I'd like to play it again - it's quick and intriguing - but I might eventually end up disliking it.

Race For the Galaxy - Just like San Juan! Yeah, but with a crappy theme and more complicated. Yes, there was something interesting in there, but I'm not really a huge fan. I had the military starter hand and implemented a military strategy fairly effectively, but lost to aaronseeber's produce / consume / buy VPs strategy. Meh... I'd play it again.

Key Harvest - I really really wanted to play Key Harvest, so I put it on the table and as I hoped, some people came. This was a game I added to an order to get free shipping, and although I researched it pretty carefully I wasn't sure I was going to like it. It has strong connection elements, but I wasn't sure about the sales mechanism. It turned out I did like the sales mechanism (quick summary - I choose what's for sale and set a price, you can pay me that much for it, or I can pay the bank that much) as I set high prices which reflected what the field was worth to me, and when people paid it I felt I'd screwed them down. Brendan played a very good game and I think I beat him by a point. I like Key Harvest a lot.

Kingsburg - This is another I've done research on, and I suspected I'd like. I was right, and I like it even more than I expected to. I was taught by Neil from Albury. I was wary of the invasions, and pursued a defensive strategy which worked just well enough to win the game. I'm thinking about getting it - it's good, but is it good enough to be played regularly?

Pandemic - This was my number one priority to play, and when I had the chance I grabbed Randy and made him teach me. We played very quickly so as to finish before the Take It Easy tournament, and as Randy was the experienced player he made a lot of suggestions which I followed. He was the dispatcher and I was the researcher, and we won almost comfortably. I did like this, and will get my own copy if I can. It will be a good solitaire game, though I suspect as with most cooperative games it will suffer from the "do what the most experience guy says" syndrome.

Caylus Magna Carta - I didn't like Caylus much, but since Agricola came out I can see that it did some good things. I figured that if they could put the good things into a much shorter game it might work. Y'know... I really really hate the provost. If he just moved at a constant rate that would be OK, but I do not like the mechanism of being able to pay to move him backwards. That costs both games 2 or 3 rating points from me. Magna Carta was better than Caylus, but I think I still only rate it a 5.

Tri-Virsity - This is a rummy game with letter cards where your melds have to be words. Scrabblette suggested I buy it, and we've played three games of it already. It is a bit frustratingly random, as one player can go out on their first time and another player can have a fistful of consonants, but it's OK.

I REALLY Went to Fraser's House and REALLY Played Ingenious!

Yesterday was a big day of travelling - Scrabblette and I have come to Melbourne to attend ConVic. I'm not very good at planning holidays - by the time I've organised everything it feels like a plan I need to work through rather than a time to relax - but this one is going well so far. The flight was fine, the accommodation is fine (with broadband!), and we're getting around the city pretty easily. All you need is a tram ticket and a satellite navigation system.

Scrabblette is a big fan of art galleries, so our first outing yesterday was to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. The only map we had was a tourist map which conveniently omitted the dozen or so blocks we needed to walk. I tried to get Emily the satav to help us, but she just said "GPS is off". The walk was so long though that we figured out that Emily has a flap which needs to be open before she can see satellites.

After the ACCA and the VCA (Victorian College of Art) Gallery we got to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) but were too footsore and hungry to stop. Instead we found a stall at Flinders St station selling choc-coated churros, and we scoffed far too many of those while watching the Victorian Police Jazz Band in Federation Square. Then we poked around the city for a while, looking for bookshops, before catching the tram out to Fraser and Melissa's real house. I just told Emily where they lived and Emily told us when we were nearly there and hence had to get off the tram. Very cool.

While Melissa rushed around with Biggie and Otto, Scrabblette and I played Tier auf Tier and Ingenious with Fraser. Tier auf Tier looks very cute, but I didn't find much interesting tactical play in it - I guess it really is for little kids. After Gulo Gulo being such a cool game maybe I expect too much of kids' games. Scrabblette then suggested Ingenious, which she loves, and Fraser proceeded to wipe the floor with us and chuckle evilly while doing so.

Then Melissa came back, and we met the girls (Biggie maybe remembered me from a couple of years ago), and went down the street for dinner. Melbourne is such a cool place, at least in the bits I visit - going down the street for dinner in Brisbane is often difficult because there is nowhere to go to! Yes, the baba ganoush is very good. Then Fraser very kindly took us home via all of the suburbs named after AFL teams (don't have that in Brisbane either).

The kid arrives today, and ConVic starts tonight. But right now, we need to get soome breakfast.

I Went to Fraser's Bed Room And All I Got Was Bitter And a Nasty Little Rash

Actually, all I got was two games of solitaire Einfach Genial, but that's not half as interesting as UK Squeeze's clever line.

I tried to get onto BrettSpielWelt last night for the first time in well over a year, and completely failed due to their server being down. Melissa's Aussie Games Night in Lupus Landing was a bit of a flop since nobody could log on. BSW was working well enough for me to think it might be useful, but not well enough to say ES IS NICHT GUT - GEHEN SIE AUS - SCHNELL SCHNELL. So I tried again this evening because Java applications should not defeat me, and it works. In that incomprehensible way that BSW does. I followed Melissa's instructions to get to Lupus Landing and... what next. Some nice German person offered hilfe, I think, but I said "don't try to sell me that shit I'm just here to play games". I Googled for some help, and it didn't. I clicked on everything I could see and found Fraser's house. I went in... no Fraser. I found Melissa's very nice little house (dude, leave the domestic decoration to her!) and went in... no Melissa. They might be hiding in 7ofAnn's house for all I know... but more likely Fraser is at a RL game group and Melissa is putting the infamous Otto and Biggie to bed.

But eventually I found a house where an Einfach Genial board was set up and was able to play solitaire. At the time, I should have been putting my own kid to bed, but instead he was surfing the web downloading Weird Al songs. But still, I played a couple of games.

I didn't do very well. But at least I can mostly work BSW now. This internet thing might catch on.

"To change the mood a little I've been posing down the pub
On seeing my reflection I'm looking slightly rough
I fancy this, I fancy that, I wanna be so flash
I give a little muscle and I spend a little cash
But all I get is bitter and a nasty little rash
And by the time I'm sober I've forgotten what I've had
And everybody tells me that it's cool to be a cat; it's cool for cats"

More New Games

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.

A Cosmic Encounter

We played Cosmic Encounter on Wednesday night at Book Realm. Cosmic is not really my kinda game, but forces conspired against me. You see Trevor had managed to buy the ancient 2nd edition complete with all expansions in useable condition for $A5, when it's worth up to $US300. We know this because Cyberkev is a Cosmic guru, so when Trevor and Cyberkev and RealmKeeper and Ozvortex and I sat down to play, I thought it only fair that we try out Trevor's treasure.

First discovery was that although the cards and special powers were present, the tokens and "who you have to attack" counters were not all there, so we cannibalised some bits from other games. We took the pirates from Cartagena and put them in the draw string bag from Ingenious to decide who should be attacked. I used influence markers from Go West as my tokens, and RealmKeeper and Trevor used pretty glass stones from Magic as their tokens.

I won't go through the specifics of the game, because I can't remember them, so I'll tell you about the special powers. I was Boomerang. This meant when you attack me, I get to attack you first. That seemed like a quicker way to die, to me, but as Cyberkev pointed out, it means you get lots more opportunities to capture bases which is how you win the game. Trevor was Skeptic, which meant that he was constantly telling people "I don't think you can win", and on several occasions they agreed with him and backed off. Cyberkev was Vulch, meaning that he picked up all of the used Edicts. So if you wanted to use something against him, you had to give it to him. Andrew was Delegator, meaning that he could change the primary player in conflicts. I found that so annoying that I didn't call him as an ally very much. Ozvortex was the Will, meaning he could choose the opponent and planet he wanted to attack. It didn't seem to help though.

So the Delegator was by far the most annoying. Realmkeeper got somewhat shafted because he had bad cards and after a couple of times where he switched someone's attack out from under them he didn't get invited back and wasn't able to use them up to get new ones. Ozvortex had a fist full of cards, and once I managed to take 4 of them as consolation. Shortly after, I compromised with him, and as giving me a base would have won the game for me, I convinced him to give me his whole hand instead. Both times, I got a heap of Edict cards, and had to spend time thinking about how I could use them to my advantage.

Eventually, as will happen with sort of game where it is so easy to pick on the leader, we had 4 bases each. I attacked Trevor on my turn, and he called for all allies. The Delegator joined in, and made Cyberkev the primary opponent rather than Trevor. We played our cards, and I was well and truly defeated, which I had expected because I had such bad attack cards. But I did have an Edict that said both of those attack cards were Compromises. That meant Cyberkev and I had to make a deal, so we traded a base for a base and shared the win.

I was pleased that it was Cyberkev I had dealt with there, as I thought he would take the win. Trevor might have refused, because he likes to fight. Ozvortex probably would have agreed, Realmkeeper could have gone either way depending on his whim. But I thought Cyberkev would find it very hard to refuse a chance to share a win. As it was, I think he considered his chances of winning some other way, and decided that sharing a win with me was his best outcome, on average.

So that was my second game of Cosmic, what do I think? Well my 6.5 rating at BGG remains unchanged. It's an alright game, but I just can't get into the negotiation of allies. Sure, I could try to be charming or friendly or loyal or intimidating or whatever to try to gain support, but I know that most people I play with will ally with me based on their best interests, not my personal skill. So it was no surprise to me when all 5 of us had 4 bases, because nobody was stupid enough to let someone else win. We might as well shorten the game and play for 1 base each. I definitely prefer analytical games, where I can harness the resources of my massive brain to crush my opponents... or not.

Coincidentally, on Thursday night we played Mall of Horror which requires much the same negotation skills as Cosmic. Sadly I was so tired on Thursday night because I couldn't sleep Wednesday night because Cosmic Encounter had pumped me up so much, that I was flat all through the game. I made a bad mistake to get my gunman killed, and fell out of contention 2/3 of the way through the game. Mall of Horror is another game that I would play again, but wouldn't rush to.

Probably my favourite of this genre of game is Ca$h'n Gun$, maybe because you can always chicken out when you've got guns pointed at you, and that means you only die if you're not careful, and the game becomes a struggle to balance caution and greed. Also it's a bit quicker, so there's less time spent negotiating, and it's funny to shoot kids.

Matthew Marquand is Ingenious

I've been playing a bit against Matthew Marquand's on-line Ingenious implementation. I'm ashamed to say it beat me in 2 player the first few times, so I need to practise. Excellent work!