Mind The Gap

At Critical Mass last night I was happy to see the kid get himself involved in a game of Age of Empires III (which is his kind of game but not mine) so I had time for a proper game of something else. We were about the start a 5 player game of On The Underground but elphiecoyle arrived and we couldn't expand to 6 players, so two players split off to play Ra with Elphie while aaronseeber and Keith and I played OtU.

Regular readers of this blog may remember my rants about train games and wonder why I'm playing this, let alone owning it. It's all Cameron Browne's fault. I read his book on Connection Games and about the same time unhalfbricking.com was offering TransEuropa for $A45. I took a chance and liked that game a lot. When I read that On the Underground was similar but more complicated that interested me too, and I took another chance. So now I have three train games I like (because Scrabblette bought TransAmerica as well) and I think I know what it must feel like to discover you want to be a woman. It's confusing, and...hmm... better not take that analogy too far. Let's just say I'm wondering whether I'd like Ticket to Ride more if I tried it again.

Anyway, with 3 players in OtU you get 3 colours (lines) each. I started building my long blue line (20 pieces) on the central loop as there was a quick 3 points to be gained connecting cameras. Aaron and Keith developed their lines according to the desires of the passenger and took the lead in points. I wanted to develop the blue line - get a loop, connect some symbols - and then make some branch lines out to the suburbs to scores some passenger points.

My plan was working well, in that I had a good solid blue almost-loop but trailed on the scoring track. Then on Keith's turn two passenger cards to the northwest were drawn. Aaron built the line from Earl's Court to Acton Town which I'd wanted for myself. The two more cards to the northwest were drawn, and I had to build a line from Acton Town to Sudbury to make sure I got more than my fair share of those points.

Having been almost too late to score those points I decided I had to start my other line from Woodford to Mile End before the passenger dragged my opponents over there. Meanwhile Keith was building a black line to rival my blue, and Aaron's pink and red lines were sneaking all over the middle of the board sucking up valuable passenger points. I completed the blue loop for a 9 point bonus and caught up with them.

Aaron continued to score well, but Keith seemed to get bogged down with branches. Aaron was leading and Keith fell behind. I could see the pile of passenger cards dwindling and decided I needed to get some good points so in one turn I terminated both ends of my Uxbridge-Ealing Broadway line. On my next turn I branched the blue loop to Hammersmith to connect to the symbol there. Then, the draw pile emptied and the passenger was removed from the board just before my turn. I had the last turn of the game with no possibility of passenger points - but Aaron was only one point ahead of me. I took a branch marker, played to a terminus, took another branch marker and played to a national rail connection, and moved two points ahead of Aaron for a hard-fought come-from-behind victory.

I really do like this game. I could imagine with AP-prone players it would bog down and that would suck, but when it moves along it's very good. It's pretty, you can make and execute plans, and there's plenty to think about.

Critical Mass All Day Gaming

The kid and I went along to the Critical Mass all-day meeting yesterday and played a few games. We played from 10am till 10pm, in fact. It was a long day! How do those Gathered Friends do it for day after day? I took along a few older games which didn't get played and some of the newer ones which did. Here's what we played and my impressions.

TransEuropa - Even though I got fairly badly beaten, I still like this game a lot. In fact, the previous time we played Scrabblette beat me. It's always an interesting puzzle.

Portable Adventures: Lair of the Rat King - This one seems to be more luck-based than its sibling, Battle of the Bands. In BotB, quiet but steady play can sometimes win the game for you. When you venture into the Rat King's lair you can win 2, 3 or 4 of the required victory points in one adventure, so if someone gets lucky they can win by mistake. I claim that's exactly what Mikey did. But still, it's not a game to take seriously.

Hey! That's My Fish! - What a good game this is! I taught it to half a dozen people or so through the course of the day, and in most cases I beat them soundly in the first game and then played a second game where they knew What Sort Of Game It Was. I particularly enjoyed the second game against the Evil Count von Walduck where I knew I was up against a particularly cunning opponent, and the game started to feel very abstract indeed.


Give Me The Brain - A stupid game, yes, but there were a couple of kids playing.

On the Underground - It's quite hard work to play this with an upside-down map! Nevertheless, Daniel was upside down and he won. It seemed his line up to the north-west was useful enough to win for him. I'd like to play more to see if I can see any strategy.

Under Cover - (This is also called Heimlich & Co.) A simple and fun game for the 6 players we had. It's very simple, and I notice there's an Advanced section in the rules so I'll have to look to see what that's about.

Mystery Rummy: Al Capone - I've liked all the Mystery Rummy games so far, but this one left me cold. With two players there were going to be 20-something cards in play, but there are 10 different gangsters to be melded. It could well be that some of them never turn up during a game. A lot of the gavel cards which involve taking other cards in play were totally useless. Did we play this right?

For Sale - An oldie but an almost goodie.

Set - I love this brain-burner! Almost nobody else does though :-(.

Villa Paletti - Brought along by Bertie Beetle who likes dexterity games he went to funagain and bought all of them. This is a game I need to play a lot more of because I did such a crappy job this time! I'll have to give it as a present to somebody. Or else hang out with Bertie a lot more.

Unpublished Prototype - The Evil Count showed me the game he's working on. He has some very cool ideas! I hope it continues to prosper.

San Marco - I've wanted to play this for a long time because of the divide-and-choose mechanism, but after you get past that it's still an area majority game. There's a lot to like about this game, e.g. the surreal illustrations on the board, but I'm not sure I want to play it particularly often.

Anyway, the kid is having chocolate for breakfast. I'd better prepare myself.

On Order

Scrabblette is off to the U.S. on a taxpayer-funded junket, but she's bringing back games for this particular taxpayer so let's not bitch too much. Here's what's on its way to various locations around the U.S. for her to collect.

Taluva - I just can't get those sexy bits out of my mind, I must have that game! When I went to place my order last week it was out of stock at Boards and Bits. Then it came into stock but I had to wait for Scrabblette to decide whether she wanted to buy anything. Then it went out of stock again. I ended up ordering it from Amazon instead. I didn't want to.

Urland and its expansion - For some reason, I decided that because I couldn't get Taluva I had to order this from Boards and Bits instead. I have Primordial Soup and EVO, it would be silly to not get the second game in the trilogy, huh?

Runebound expansions - Yes, I do like Runebound and I intend to play some of it with myself while Scrabblette's away. I ordered the Sands of Al-Kalim and about 6 smaller expansions. I've avoided the class decks because they're not so useful if you play solitaire.

Fiji - My Friedemann fetish continues. My kid is starting to love him too.

Hey, That's My Fish! - Scrabblette likes abstracts, and this is the highest rated abstract I don't already own. Oh yeah, this and the next 3 games are coming direct to me from the FIGS in Melbourne. B&B didn't have this in stock the first time I looked, then unhalfbricking got it, and I decided that since Julian games with me and Tom doesn't make it over here so much, I'd get it from Julian.

Cave Troll - I'm not sure I'm going to like this one, but I'll see. I first tried to order it with Orcz and Arena Maximus, and they both turned out to be turkeys, so I'm scared.

Funny Friends - I need my own copy so CyberKev doesn't know when I'm holding my swingers' parties. Baby psychotic tornado sister liked it so much she'll demand we play it next time she visits. Which reminds me, I'd better order some food in for Pete.

On the Underground - Yes, it's another train game! I like Trans Europa a lot, so I thought I'd push my luck.

Portable Adventures: Lair of the Rat King - I have Battle of the Bands which is a very good silly card game that the kids like a lot. They LOVE Santa Claus becoming a junkie and the producer dying in a bus crash (game after game) and all the other nonsense. This and the next game are in the same series by the same designer, so I'm expecting good things. I ordered these from the publisher's on-line store.

Portable Adventures: 8th Grade - My nephew is in 1st Grade so he may not understand this one and may not be able to read the cards for a while yet, but my niece is in 7th Grade so this should be right up her alley.