Only twice in Unspeakable Words have I played a word worth more than 20 points. Both times I have rolled a 20 so I didn't lose sanity. It's a good strategy if you can pull it off.
Maria, you should get that game.
Showing posts with label Unspeakable Words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unspeakable Words. Show all posts
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Local Warming
Last night we hosted the Gathering of Friendless Episode 8, "Local Warming". We had six players - all the usual suspects and the kid. As we weren't sure what time everyone was arriving we played a quick throwaway game which CyberKev had to teach several times as everybody inevitably arrived just as the rules explanation was almost complete again.
The game was Throwing Golden Sevens which is one of Reiner Knizia's dice games from "Dice Games Properly Explained". Basically you roll 3 dice, and you're trying to minimise your score. Any number of dice which add up to seven count as 0. You can reroll any, all or no dice twice. Scoring high is bad, as when you reach 21 you're eliminate from the game. It's somewhat a game of luck, but also somewhat a game of maths. If you roll 1, 2, 6 on your first throw you could take the 2 points, (6 + 1 is 7, which counts as 0), or you could roll the 6 again hoping to get a 4. If you get a 4 you're better off, if you get 6 you're the same, if you get a 5 you score 1. Other rolls are not as good, but you're still scoring 6 or less (though 6 is quite a lot). As the game progressed players were eliminated due to blowouts - Hubertus scored a 14, Kevin a 16, Scrabblette a 9. I hung out to win, but it was noted that I had had a turn less than everyone else.
We then progressed to a serious game, I'm the Boss! This is one of the very few "fun" games that I really enjoy. The kid started by being a hard-nosed vindictive bargainer, and fairly soon people were refusing to trade with him. He needs to learn about the velvet glove and the big stick. CyberKev somehow got into his head that Jane was losing and Scrabblette was winning, so directed his deals towards Jane at Scrabblette's expense. Sadly, he was wrong, and managed only to give the game to Jane. At the crucial part of the game I was left holding some quite useless cards and couldn't make much of an impact.
CyberKev had brought Rumis+ (the 5-6 player expansion for the German edition of Rumis, which I have), so we tried that. This is a very good game, but with 6 players crowding to see the board from above I began to feel claustrophobic. Through some good management and some good fortune I saved some easy-to-place pieces till last, and was the only player to place all of my pieces and managed to win comfortably. I do like Rumis, though I sometimes feel I succeed because other people make mistakes which help me.
Hubertus and Jane had to leave to get up early, so we had 4 players and brought out TechnoWitches. I played this once about a year ago, and I was very bad at it, and this time I was no better. CyberKev parked his broom in front of me and I was unable to move. I should have thought my play through a bit better. BTW, we play that if you crash into something on your first move you MAY discard your tiles. The official rules say that you do not discard them, which is an awful problem if you crash into a castle, or into a witch who keeps crashing into a castle. Anyway, while CyberKev and I went nowhere Scrabblette and the kid headed off towards the cat. The kid was very close to the cat before I even crossed the start line. He won easily. Scrabblette was a close second, and CyberKev and I played on for third place. Showing that crime never pays, I pushed the evil blocker into last place.
The evening ended with a couple of games of Unspeakable Words while the kid whined that we never get to play Star Munchkin, or Battle of the Bands, or some other thing I don't need to play very often. Scrabblette won the first game, as she always does, but I did beat her in the second game - for the first time in maybe a dozen plays. Woohoo!
The game was Throwing Golden Sevens which is one of Reiner Knizia's dice games from "Dice Games Properly Explained". Basically you roll 3 dice, and you're trying to minimise your score. Any number of dice which add up to seven count as 0. You can reroll any, all or no dice twice. Scoring high is bad, as when you reach 21 you're eliminate from the game. It's somewhat a game of luck, but also somewhat a game of maths. If you roll 1, 2, 6 on your first throw you could take the 2 points, (6 + 1 is 7, which counts as 0), or you could roll the 6 again hoping to get a 4. If you get a 4 you're better off, if you get 6 you're the same, if you get a 5 you score 1. Other rolls are not as good, but you're still scoring 6 or less (though 6 is quite a lot). As the game progressed players were eliminated due to blowouts - Hubertus scored a 14, Kevin a 16, Scrabblette a 9. I hung out to win, but it was noted that I had had a turn less than everyone else.
We then progressed to a serious game, I'm the Boss! This is one of the very few "fun" games that I really enjoy. The kid started by being a hard-nosed vindictive bargainer, and fairly soon people were refusing to trade with him. He needs to learn about the velvet glove and the big stick. CyberKev somehow got into his head that Jane was losing and Scrabblette was winning, so directed his deals towards Jane at Scrabblette's expense. Sadly, he was wrong, and managed only to give the game to Jane. At the crucial part of the game I was left holding some quite useless cards and couldn't make much of an impact.
CyberKev had brought Rumis+ (the 5-6 player expansion for the German edition of Rumis, which I have), so we tried that. This is a very good game, but with 6 players crowding to see the board from above I began to feel claustrophobic. Through some good management and some good fortune I saved some easy-to-place pieces till last, and was the only player to place all of my pieces and managed to win comfortably. I do like Rumis, though I sometimes feel I succeed because other people make mistakes which help me.
Hubertus and Jane had to leave to get up early, so we had 4 players and brought out TechnoWitches. I played this once about a year ago, and I was very bad at it, and this time I was no better. CyberKev parked his broom in front of me and I was unable to move. I should have thought my play through a bit better. BTW, we play that if you crash into something on your first move you MAY discard your tiles. The official rules say that you do not discard them, which is an awful problem if you crash into a castle, or into a witch who keeps crashing into a castle. Anyway, while CyberKev and I went nowhere Scrabblette and the kid headed off towards the cat. The kid was very close to the cat before I even crossed the start line. He won easily. Scrabblette was a close second, and CyberKev and I played on for third place. Showing that crime never pays, I pushed the evil blocker into last place.
The evening ended with a couple of games of Unspeakable Words while the kid whined that we never get to play Star Munchkin, or Battle of the Bands, or some other thing I don't need to play very often. Scrabblette won the first game, as she always does, but I did beat her in the second game - for the first time in maybe a dozen plays. Woohoo!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Festival of Lights
The most recent Gathering of Friendless coincided with Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. This festival commemorates the legendary time when Rama returned to Ayodhya after helping Vishwamitra destroy the demons of the Dandaka-van and demolishing Ravana's army at Mithila using the power of the Brahm-astra. You must remember that. Anyway, it's something like a Hindu Christmas, and with our household being as Hindu as it is Christian (i.e. not at all), we lit some candles and got some Indian sweets and celebrated Diwali. That makes sense, doesn't it?
So the subtitle of the Gathering of Friendless episode was "The Festival of Lights". As the only "light" games I could think of were Nacht der Magier, which only takes 4 players and is played in the dark anyway; and Khet which is a 2 player game; we completely ignored the light theme.
We started with a two-team game of Bamboleo while waiting to see who might arrive. CyberKev made a mathematical mistake and took his team down very efficiently, leaving the team of Aaron, Hubertus and John to win 21 points to -1.
We'd all played Trans(Europa|America) but only a few of us had played the Vexation expansion, so we then played Vexation with TransEuropa. When I read the rules of Vexation I was sure I'd hate it - why take a great game and make it malicious? - but it's not malicious at all, it just has blocking. That I can cope with. Most of us didn't get the hang of the expansion at all, with the game only lasting two rounds, with Aaron on 12, me on 10, and nobody else above 1. Even Scrabblette, who is very good at the Trans games, did very badly.
We progressed to one of CyberKev's favourites, Frank's Zoo, which apparently takes up to seven players. There were six of us, and it seemed to me that the game was significantly weaker with six than with four. It wasn't likely that there was a pair of anything in someone's hand, and I found it hard to judge what might be a good play. Scores were very even for the whole game, with Scrabblette eventually winning on 24 and last place being up to 15.
We then played something we'd been hoping to play for months - Mystery of the Abbey. This is one of the four games I rate a 10 (Scrabble, Trias and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation), and I don't often play it. CyberKev argues that it's too chaotic and the card-passing takes away from the deductive aspect; but I say that if the card-passing has much of an effect you're not very good at the deduction. Last time we played this at Critical Mass I stole the win from Scrabblette so there was some tension at our end of the table - she determined not to let it happen again, me determined to be even more cunning this time.
Very early in the game we discovered that all of the Fathers were in people's hands, so they didn't do it. There weren't many clear clues for a while then until the second round when the event at Mass was that novices were confined to their chambers. For this event each player places a novice in front of their cellula. Scrabblette didn't have one, so there were 5 novices on the board. A few people asked questions about the other novices and I realised that with 5 on the board, one in my hand, one in Aaron's hand, and none with anybody else, that there were two missing. There was one card in the Parlatorium, so the killer must be a novice. A good deduction I thought, but way too obvious and I was sure everybody saw it.
CyberKev immediately went to the Capitulum and revealed that the killer was a novice. I was trying to figure out how I could figure out which novice. I tried to get around to see as many of the face-down cards as I could in the round, but only managed to get to two of them, one of which I knew about already. That left 4 novices I hadn't seen. Then Scrabblette went to the Capitulum and revealed that the killer was a brother. HUH?
Scrabblette had figured out that there were 8 novices in play, so therefore the killer couldn't be a novice. Except that there are 9 novices. One of those completely stupid screw-ups that happen from time to time. But the best part was, at the second mass she was protecting her brother cards and so passed me a novice - the one from the Parlatorium. That narrowed it down to three! I was first player in the third round and hot-footed it to the Capitulum! I wasn't really clear who the killer was, but I had a suspicion that Hubertus had novice Guy, and I knew which of the other two novices Aaron didn't have... so I guessed that was the guy. Further questions between other players while I was on my way only served to confirm my guess, and when I arrived at the Capitulum I accused the correct killer.
In the post-game analysis, I think it was the novice in my hand that saved me. Nobody knew who he was, and Scrabblette, who was definitely smart enough to Figure These Things Out, was off on the wild goose chase with the brothers. Nobody else quite cottoned on that my novice was the last one who wasn't the killer, and maybe they hadn't seen the novice cards outside the cellula in the second round either. In the end, it was an honest victory to me, which is satisfying but not as much fun as stealing a win from somebody else.
The final game for the evening was Unspeakable Words which is becoming a comfortable favourite, even though we do keep discovering new rules. It's a quick and easy word game, and despite the die hating me I always enjoy it. As often happens, Scrabblette thrashed us.
My stats program tells me that this day was my best day of gaming ever. Here's hoping we can continue in that vein!
So the subtitle of the Gathering of Friendless episode was "The Festival of Lights". As the only "light" games I could think of were Nacht der Magier, which only takes 4 players and is played in the dark anyway; and Khet which is a 2 player game; we completely ignored the light theme.
We started with a two-team game of Bamboleo while waiting to see who might arrive. CyberKev made a mathematical mistake and took his team down very efficiently, leaving the team of Aaron, Hubertus and John to win 21 points to -1.
We'd all played Trans(Europa|America) but only a few of us had played the Vexation expansion, so we then played Vexation with TransEuropa. When I read the rules of Vexation I was sure I'd hate it - why take a great game and make it malicious? - but it's not malicious at all, it just has blocking. That I can cope with. Most of us didn't get the hang of the expansion at all, with the game only lasting two rounds, with Aaron on 12, me on 10, and nobody else above 1. Even Scrabblette, who is very good at the Trans games, did very badly.
We progressed to one of CyberKev's favourites, Frank's Zoo, which apparently takes up to seven players. There were six of us, and it seemed to me that the game was significantly weaker with six than with four. It wasn't likely that there was a pair of anything in someone's hand, and I found it hard to judge what might be a good play. Scores were very even for the whole game, with Scrabblette eventually winning on 24 and last place being up to 15.
We then played something we'd been hoping to play for months - Mystery of the Abbey. This is one of the four games I rate a 10 (Scrabble, Trias and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation), and I don't often play it. CyberKev argues that it's too chaotic and the card-passing takes away from the deductive aspect; but I say that if the card-passing has much of an effect you're not very good at the deduction. Last time we played this at Critical Mass I stole the win from Scrabblette so there was some tension at our end of the table - she determined not to let it happen again, me determined to be even more cunning this time.
Very early in the game we discovered that all of the Fathers were in people's hands, so they didn't do it. There weren't many clear clues for a while then until the second round when the event at Mass was that novices were confined to their chambers. For this event each player places a novice in front of their cellula. Scrabblette didn't have one, so there were 5 novices on the board. A few people asked questions about the other novices and I realised that with 5 on the board, one in my hand, one in Aaron's hand, and none with anybody else, that there were two missing. There was one card in the Parlatorium, so the killer must be a novice. A good deduction I thought, but way too obvious and I was sure everybody saw it.
CyberKev immediately went to the Capitulum and revealed that the killer was a novice. I was trying to figure out how I could figure out which novice. I tried to get around to see as many of the face-down cards as I could in the round, but only managed to get to two of them, one of which I knew about already. That left 4 novices I hadn't seen. Then Scrabblette went to the Capitulum and revealed that the killer was a brother. HUH?
Scrabblette had figured out that there were 8 novices in play, so therefore the killer couldn't be a novice. Except that there are 9 novices. One of those completely stupid screw-ups that happen from time to time. But the best part was, at the second mass she was protecting her brother cards and so passed me a novice - the one from the Parlatorium. That narrowed it down to three! I was first player in the third round and hot-footed it to the Capitulum! I wasn't really clear who the killer was, but I had a suspicion that Hubertus had novice Guy, and I knew which of the other two novices Aaron didn't have... so I guessed that was the guy. Further questions between other players while I was on my way only served to confirm my guess, and when I arrived at the Capitulum I accused the correct killer.
In the post-game analysis, I think it was the novice in my hand that saved me. Nobody knew who he was, and Scrabblette, who was definitely smart enough to Figure These Things Out, was off on the wild goose chase with the brothers. Nobody else quite cottoned on that my novice was the last one who wasn't the killer, and maybe they hadn't seen the novice cards outside the cellula in the second round either. In the end, it was an honest victory to me, which is satisfying but not as much fun as stealing a win from somebody else.
The final game for the evening was Unspeakable Words which is becoming a comfortable favourite, even though we do keep discovering new rules. It's a quick and easy word game, and despite the die hating me I always enjoy it. As often happens, Scrabblette thrashed us.
My stats program tells me that this day was my best day of gaming ever. Here's hoping we can continue in that vein!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
SPONSORED BY FUNATICAL GAMES
During the week before the last Gathering of Friendless I realised my mate from Funatical Games had said "if there are any games you want to try out, just let me know". Funatical distributes Z-Man games (and others) in Australia, so there's lots of interesting stuff. Z-Man's quality varies, but they publish a lot of games. So my mate came over with a big pile of games which I had to quickly read the rules of in time for the Gathering.
This time, to avoid having 7 guests I invited 15 people, and still only 5 showed up. And Jane was late. So the 4 of us started with Ubongo because it's very pretty. CyberKev and I did very well, and it was very close at the end. In fact, if CyberKev hadn't accidentally played the easy side of the card, it might have been even closer. I don't know if I really go for the puzzle component, but for a puzzle game it's OK. I'll have to try it with the kids.
We then played Escalation where I suffered from having CyberKev sit to my right. That meant he could play bad cards at me, and I got badly hurt in several brawls. That meant I couldn't do much to hurt Scrabblette to my left, and she won easily. She also got very good cards, which didn't help. It's a silly game which is best played by kids. Still, it's better than Loot.
Still waiting for Jane, we tried a new word game, My Word. Note the lack of exclamation mark - it's not Reiner's game, it's one where you have to make a lattice of four letter words. We found this to be very good Scrabble training, which is OK if you want that sort of game (I do). We all learned some new four letter words, and looked strangely at some common words which just seemed wrong. CyberKev managed to set himself up for massive points a couple of times, and won easily.
Finally Jane arrived and we played Unspeakable Words to welcome her. Most of us already knew the rules (well, some of them), and it was nice to get into a game without any teaching. Ashley probably should have had some, but we figured he was a big boy who could look after himself. I like Unspeakable Words a lot. Scrabblette completely kicked our butts.
We then went on to Dragon Parade. I didn't have a lot of hope for this game, until we realised it was like Members Only, which I do like. Once I could see the strategy of it, and how nicely it was balanced, I decided I did quite like it. Scrabblette said afterwards she felt she couldn't control the dragon and didn't like it so much. I felt the dragon went where I told it to, and did like it. One complaint though - we ran out of scoring tokens after 4 rounds. We each gave 5 points back to the bank to complet the game. I pulled off a narrow win by foiling Ashley's evil plan to run the dragon out of town.
Jane then had to leave but Scrabblette was fired up and we played Midgard. I love the Norse theme, more than I like vikings really, so I was positively disposed towards it to start. When I read the rules I realised it was like El Grande light, which was not such a good thing. And playing a pissing war game against CyberKev is always dangerous. True to form, CyberKev rushed to the lead. True to form, no matter what I wanted someone else wanted it more. "I think I'll just grovel in this mud in last place"... "NO, THAT'S MY MUD! 20 VICTORY POINTS FOR MOST MUD!" Coming into the third era Scrabblette was one point behind CyberKev, though all I saw was CyberKev in front. I figured my best option was to hit him hard, and played a card which cost him maybe 20 points. However I hadn't noticed how strong Scrabblette's position was, and she went on to beat him by 23. Great... now she can kick my butt at pissing wars as well.
Anpther successful evening. We tried out 4 new games from Funatical, and crossed off another of my unplayed games. The kid says "climbed arc de trioumph and sacrificed my legs, 284 steps just to go up! luckily the eiffel tour as the locals call it has a lift!"
This time, to avoid having 7 guests I invited 15 people, and still only 5 showed up. And Jane was late. So the 4 of us started with Ubongo because it's very pretty. CyberKev and I did very well, and it was very close at the end. In fact, if CyberKev hadn't accidentally played the easy side of the card, it might have been even closer. I don't know if I really go for the puzzle component, but for a puzzle game it's OK. I'll have to try it with the kids.
We then played Escalation where I suffered from having CyberKev sit to my right. That meant he could play bad cards at me, and I got badly hurt in several brawls. That meant I couldn't do much to hurt Scrabblette to my left, and she won easily. She also got very good cards, which didn't help. It's a silly game which is best played by kids. Still, it's better than Loot.
Still waiting for Jane, we tried a new word game, My Word. Note the lack of exclamation mark - it's not Reiner's game, it's one where you have to make a lattice of four letter words. We found this to be very good Scrabble training, which is OK if you want that sort of game (I do). We all learned some new four letter words, and looked strangely at some common words which just seemed wrong. CyberKev managed to set himself up for massive points a couple of times, and won easily.
Finally Jane arrived and we played Unspeakable Words to welcome her. Most of us already knew the rules (well, some of them), and it was nice to get into a game without any teaching. Ashley probably should have had some, but we figured he was a big boy who could look after himself. I like Unspeakable Words a lot. Scrabblette completely kicked our butts.
We then went on to Dragon Parade. I didn't have a lot of hope for this game, until we realised it was like Members Only, which I do like. Once I could see the strategy of it, and how nicely it was balanced, I decided I did quite like it. Scrabblette said afterwards she felt she couldn't control the dragon and didn't like it so much. I felt the dragon went where I told it to, and did like it. One complaint though - we ran out of scoring tokens after 4 rounds. We each gave 5 points back to the bank to complet the game. I pulled off a narrow win by foiling Ashley's evil plan to run the dragon out of town.
Jane then had to leave but Scrabblette was fired up and we played Midgard. I love the Norse theme, more than I like vikings really, so I was positively disposed towards it to start. When I read the rules I realised it was like El Grande light, which was not such a good thing. And playing a pissing war game against CyberKev is always dangerous. True to form, CyberKev rushed to the lead. True to form, no matter what I wanted someone else wanted it more. "I think I'll just grovel in this mud in last place"... "NO, THAT'S MY MUD! 20 VICTORY POINTS FOR MOST MUD!" Coming into the third era Scrabblette was one point behind CyberKev, though all I saw was CyberKev in front. I figured my best option was to hit him hard, and played a card which cost him maybe 20 points. However I hadn't noticed how strong Scrabblette's position was, and she went on to beat him by 23. Great... now she can kick my butt at pissing wars as well.
Anpther successful evening. We tried out 4 new games from Funatical, and crossed off another of my unplayed games. The kid says "climbed arc de trioumph and sacrificed my legs, 284 steps just to go up! luckily the eiffel tour as the locals call it has a lift!"
Monday, July 02, 2007
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"
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.
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