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.

Designers That Are Not As Good As Kris Burm

There are a few designers that get me excited - Bruno Faidutti, Friedemann Friese, Doris & Frank, Mike Fitzgerald, and of course Kris Burm. Reiner Knizia does not - I've played too many of his crappy card games to not be wary. Klaus Teuber doesn't either - although Settlers is a masterpiece he seems reluctant to try something really new. Wolfgang Kramer doesn't either - although he's made some masterpieces such as Tikal and Gulo Gulo, he's made some dross like Australia and 6 Nimmt! as well. However there are a number of designers that I just can't get emotional about either way, and it's those that I'd like to discuss today.

Rudiger Dorn (Goa, Jambo, Louis XIV, Traders of Genoa) - I own 3 of Dorn's games, and have played Louis XIV as well. Strangely, Goa and Traders of Genoa are games that I've only ever played with the kid, and been unable to motivate or organise myself to play with anyone else. My favourite of his designs so far is Jambo, and it's by far the simplest as well. Maybe I find his games a bit too complex?

Martin Wallace (Railroad Tycoon, Age of Steam, Runebound) - due to his tendency to design long train games, and my loathing for them, it's a wonder that I'm including Martin Wallace in this list at all. However it's an enigma to me that he also designed Runebound, probably my favourite high-Ameritrash game. I should keep an eye on his releases in case he comes up with another gem. (Note that Francis Tresham is not on this list at all.)

Dirk Henn (Alhambra, Metro, Timbuktu) - I used to own Alhambra, but it has the distinction of being the first game I ever traded away. I just thought it was boring. Timbuktu looked very exciting but three and half hours later I'd played more of it than I ever wanted to. However Metro is quite a neat little game although it's in the class of "CyberKev owns it so I can play his copy enough to satisfy me". It's possible that one day there'll be a Henn design that I really really love.

Alan Moon (Ticket to Ride, Diamant, Elfenland, Happy Dog, Pony Express, Union Pacific) - I've previously blogged about Alan Moon and his train games. The poor gentleman suffers from choosing a genre I don't like very much, as demonstrated by my very high opinion of Diamant and Elfenland. Sadly Happy Dog was an unfortunate Kniziaesque crappy card game. (Crappy card game is almost a genre by itself, isn't it? I might write more on that one day.) Maybe one day Mr Moon will design something that really hits the spot for me. Maybe San Marco is it?

Sid Sackson (Acquire, Bazaar, Can't Stop, I'm The Boss) - OK, so the man is a legend, but so is Boy George and opinions vary on him as well. I find Acquire to be mostly a bookkeeping exercise, which is not really what I want in a game, and Can't Stop gets a bit dull after a while - I find Diamant to be a much more interesting example of that genre. However I like Bazaar a lot, and I'm The Boss is a very clever and fun game. I look forward to trying out more of his designs.

Stefan Dorra (Amazonas, For Sale, Hex Hex, Pick Picknic) - I like Amazonas a lot - nobody on BGG rates it higher than I do. It feels a lot like Elfenland or Ticket to Ride with a theme that I enjoy. For Sale and Hex Hex are a bit worn out for me, but I still like Pick Picknic. My nephew thinks I gave it to him for Christmas 2005, but if so why does he only play it when I'm around? A Dorra design is always worth investigating.

The designers I've discussed above have some good designs - enough to keep me interested - but not enough to get me really excited about a new release. Maybe they have great games that I haven't tried yet? If so, please let me know and I'll hunt down a copy.