Friendless Metric Planning

We had a Critical Mass day of games today. I played Crokinole, Vikings, Fairy Tale, Fist of Dragonstones, La Citta, TransAmerica and Buyword. But that is not what this article is about.

I realised while I was playing Vikings that it's a great game that I should eventually play 10 times. Actually, if I had fewer games I could see it easily getting to 30, but lets' not get ahead of ourselves. Remember that the Friendless Metric is calculated like this: count how many games you've played 10 or more times, and call that number n. Then figure out how many times you've played your nth least-played game. That's your Friendless Metric. Mine is currently at 1, and I'd like to get it to 2. To achieve that, I need to increase n by 39, or play 39 games so that they increase to 2 plays (or else dispose of them). Let's say I do half of each, which games would be the ones that get to 10 plays? Last year I increased my number of games played 10 times by 25, so 20 would be a reasonable number for this year.

OK, so Vikings is one of them. It's currently at 5 plays. My opponents are still falling for the fishermen trap, so I need to educate them. Then I need to start playing with the special tiles. I couldn't ever be bothered playing with the auction variant - too much time wasted for negative amounts of enjoyment.

Rheinlander is currently at 9 plays, and I like it a lot, so I'd expect it to hit 10 this year. It's a 45 minute multi-player war-sort-of game. That's about how long that sort of game needs to be.

Tri-virsity and Ticket to Ride are at 9 plays each, and Scrabblette likes both of them, so I suppose they'll be played during the year. Scrabblette also likes Carrom (8 plays), Attika (8 plays) and Alexandros (7 plays) so it shouldn't be pushing the friendship too far to get each of those to 10 plays.

Cathedral, Igel Argern and Xe Queo! are at 9 plays each, but don't get played so often. Gecko3D and his kids will probably play Igel Argern, and I'll probably be able to convince Uncle Scott to play Cathedral and Xe Queo! Xe Queo! hasn't been played for a long time though. It's a very quick 2 player game, so it doesn't really fit in often at games meets, the kid is over it, and it's not Scrabblette's sort of game at all.

I'm up to 10, but it's getting a little more difficult. I cart a lot of games to games meets, but often end up playing other people's games. Maybe 1 in 5 games I take to a meeting gets played, and it's often the latest thing rather than an old favourite. For example, I played Stone Age 5 times last year without really trying, because other people wanted to. I would have preferred St Petersburg.

I played Africa 7 times last year because I pushed it on a lot of people. That's because I really like it! Not everybody else did. But it's easy to explain and quite quick, so I can probably get it played another 3 times this year. Rumis is currently at 9 plays, and one more seems practical.

What about Kris Burm games? Several are already over 10 plays. I would like to play GIPF much more, but it's not on gamerz.net and I've used up a lot of my potential plays with Scrabblette and Uncle Scott already. ZERTZ is currently at 8 plays, so I hope I can find 2 more plays of that this year.

A week or two ago CyberKev and his wife Dr Annalog came over and played Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper with me. Dr Annalog likes card games, so maybe if I play my cards right I will get one more play of Mystery Rummy: Rue Morgue this year. Scrabblette is not so keen on card games though.

Now we're getting into the really difficult territory - games that require 5 or more plays. I've left out some games, such as Lord of the Rings and Shadows Over Camelot which are at 7 or 8 plays, but I can't really predict when I'm going to play them next. Scrabblette doesn't go for the thick themes, but they sometimes happen when playing with other groups. They may get to 10 plays this year, but I'm not betting on it.

Now, wishful thinking territory. Upwords is at 5 plays. I really like Upwords. All I need to do is invite Miss Jane over for dinner every week, and I'm sure I'll be able to arrange it. Scrabblette sometimes plays Upwords as well.

Ingenious Travel Edition is at 4 plays. Scrabblette likes this, but will there be 6 opportunities to play it? Last year we played 2 games while waiting in restaurants, and I think 2 games on the tilt train. Opportunities like that don't come along every year.

Kogworks is also at 4 plays. The kid says he likes it, but it's hard to get to game with him these days, what with Habbo and iTunes and skating and being too cool for Dad. At least he still likes Pandemic. Uncle Scott may have to be my Kogworks victim, or maybe his boy young Benny.

Asterix and Obelix is only at 3 plays. It's a very light and simple card game, but it deserves more than 3 plays. I think I've almost booked Scrabblette for the entire year. Maybe the kid. Maybe Benny. Maybe I can make new friends.

Finally, Hacienda. I like Hacienda a lot, but I've only played it 3 times. I want to understand it better. I might be able to get Scrabblette to play, but it's more the sort of game that gets played at games meets. 7 plays in a year at games meets would be a lot though. Still, I fancy my chances better with something lightish like Hacienda than with Key Harvest or something hefty.

Goodness. This seems like a tough target. I have some playing to do.

A Bad Month For Gaming?

How the mighty have fallen! I have been steaming along at about 70 games played per month since the middle of 2005. In the month just completed I only recorded 28 plays. Woah, what happened there!?

Well, domestic bliss, for one thing. I used to go out gaming 2 or 3 nights a week. Since the arrival of Scrabblette I have stopped going out on Thursday nights (sorry, CyberKev) because often that is the only evening we have alone together. Scrabblette and I usually play a game that night by ourselves, so assuming I would previously play 3 games on a Thursday night, that's a net loss of 8 games per month. Also Wednesday nights have gone from Book Realm to cards with the CyberKevs (sorry, RealmKeeper), which is another 8 games per month. Critical Mass is untouched - Scrabblette has accepted that Critical Mass is a part of our life.

Also in February I didn't get a chance to go gaming on any weekend - I had a lot of things on. For example, thinking about moving house, trying to get fit by playing squash, and visiting my sick mum. My weekends are crazy busy and I haven't been able to make it to QUGS regularly at all. I hope some of those things will change.

I also played fewer short games in February. In December I played 7 games of Diamant and 5 games of Xe Queo!, not to mention Loopin' Louie and Coda and so on. The only short games played in February were 3 games of Quarto. Everything else was somewhat substantial.

The substantiality is an interesting side effect of spending more time gaming with Scrabblette and less with other people. If I'm going to spend 3 hours on one game I'd rather do it at home in my pyjamas with Scrabblette beside me than in a more traditional gaming setting. In February we played Goa, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, Taj Mahal, Wildwords and St Petersburg, each of which took a couple of hours.

It also seems that I've been playing games that I like more than usual. My stats calculate your average rating for games played in a month, and my average for February was 7.4 compared to 6.8 for December. December's average is down because I played Top 50 games I didn't even expect to like such as Railroad Tycoon and Twilight Imperium 3, but 7.4 is one of my best-rating months ever. As those numbers are not inflated by (for example) 17 games of Quoridor (which I rate a 9), that's a good result.

So was February a bad month for gaming or not? I don't know how to judge these things. I would certainly like opinions on this, as a purveyor of statistics. If I pass up a game of Scrabble (which I rate a 10) for 3 games of Diamant (which I rate a 7, I think), have I made a wise choice? Is it better to play 2 games of Tichu (rated 7) or Trias (10) and Dungeonville (5)? Someone somewhere must have a system for this.

In any case, when I got home last night Scrabblette had Through the Desert waiting on the table for me. What more could a man want?

Has It Got Legs?

In the five and dime discussions on spielfrieks someone asked posters of five and dime lists to comment on whether they thought the games "had legs", i.e. would they maintain their number of plays this year. That's an interesting question, so I'm going to go through my five and dimes and answer it. Get a cup of coffee, we could be here for a while.

Ca$h'n Gun$ (20 plays) - Will probably get to 10 plays again as it's a favourite of medium-sized kids and I know a few of those.

PitchCar (18 plays) - May get to 10 plays as I carry it around in the car for those times when I discover myself in a social situation with lots of non-gamers. Won't be played as much as it was last year.

Quoridor (17 plays) - Will get to 10 plays again this year as it's quick. I have a lot of 2 player abstracts, but most of my family are potential opponents.

Werewolf (17 plays) - Will probably get to 10 plays as it's popular at larger gaming gatherings where we often play a couple of games.

Liar's Dice (15 plays) - Will certainly get to 10 plays because it often comes out at the end of the night at Critical Mass.

Lost Cities (14 plays) - May not even make it to 5 plays this year as both of the women I played against last year are no longer gaming with me, and I'm not sure that it's Scrabblette's style. Personally, I would rather play Battle Line.

Nacht der Magier (13 plays) - Will probably make it to 5 plays but not to 10. This year it was a novelty and I will try to bring it out whenever I can this year. However I do want to get Waldschattenspiel which will compete for table time.

Gobblet (13 plays) - Will make it to 10 plays again this year as I am not finished with it yet and have plenty of opponents.

Cartagena (13 plays) - I expect this will only get to 5 plays this year. I played a lot early last year and got a bit burnt out, but it's such an easy game to explain that I'll probably teach it a few more times this year. My 6yo nephew likes it.

Coloretto (12 plays) - I still like this game but it's hard to get people to play it regularly. Maybe only 5 plays this year.

Coda (11 plays) - One that CyberKev often suggests and that I always agree with. Will get at least 5 plays.

Scrabble (11 plays) - Definitely on the Dime list again this year. I've played 3 games already.

Poison (10 plays) - Will not get to 10 plays again this year and almost certainly will not get to 5. There are other games I'd rather play and I'll probably stop carrying it around for a while.

Ingenious (10 plays) - Will not get 10 plays again this year unless Scrabblette likes it. Most of my plays last year were solitaire and I'm past that now.

Diamant (9 plays) - Will almost certainly get 10 plays this year. In fact I'll probably put it in the non-gamer's box which lives in the car. It's so easy to teach and quite a lot of fun so it's easy to get it played.

Poison Pot (9 plays) - Won't get to even 5 plays this year unless I can convince Scrabblette to play against me. I like it but almost nobody else does.

Cloud 9 (8 plays) - Will probably get to 5 plays again this year as the kids like it. Diamant will compete with it.

No Thanks! (8 plays) - I won't volunteer to play this very many times this year, but I suspect I will on occasion. Maybe not even 5 times though.

Once Upon a Time (8 plays) - I bought my niece the Dark Tales expansion for Christmas so we will play Once Upon a Time a few times this year.

Saboteur (7 plays) - Another good game for large groups. Maybe not 7 plays, but 5 is perfectly feasible.

Ra (7 plays) - Another that I won't volunteer to play but probably will anyway. Yes, it is my favourite auction game, but I hate auction games!

ZÈRTZ (7 plays) - A definite yes - I want to play this game at least 10 times this year, and I have a number of suitable opponents.

TAMSK (7 plays) - I'm not so keen on TAMSK, but not so unkeen that I won't play it. Hey, was that a triple negative?! If I bring it out a couple of times it will get to 5 or 10 plays easily.

For Sale (7 plays) - Probably won't get to 5 plays this year, I find it a bit boring.

Tichu (7 plays) - Considering that we were playing this once a week and Scrabblette likes it, this might become my most played game of 2007. Maybe we'll get sick of it, who knows?

Puerto Rico (7 plays) - The BGG #1 was a game I desperately wanted to play this year, and finally did. I even had a streak where I won 3 games in a row. But now it's almost a case of been there, done that, and I don't need to play it so many times this year. I think knowing that it's possible to play better than I do stresses me.

Commands & Colors: Ancients (7 plays) - I enjoy Ancients a lot and would like to play many more times this year. On the other hand, my opponent Arnold Horshack and I both now have BattleLore which will compete for table time. I'm hoping we can make time for both.

Chrononauts (7 plays) - This got played a few times last year because it was a Christmas present to the kid. When we tried to play it with serious gamers it became quite monotonous, and unless someone requests it it won't be played again this year.

Cathedral (6 plays) - Scrabblette gave me a copy of this for Christmas so it will be played quite a bit this year. It only takes 5 minutes, after all.

Bohnanza (6 plays) - The big year for Bohnanza was 2005, so 6 plays in 2006 were mostly incidental. I used to play with my sister, BIL, and my ex, which is unlikely to happen again, but we might be able to convince Scrabblette to play and Bohnanza will be back on the table again. If so, it might compete with Frank's Zoo and Mystery Rummy for table time.

DVONN (6 plays) - Another two player abstract which I like and have opponents for.

Tongiaki (6 plays) - This is fairly popular at Critical Mass and I've taught it a few other times, so I expect it will see 5 plays again this year.

Frank's Zoo (6 plays) - I mostly played this with CyberKev, but I also taught sister, BIL and ex and they liked it. I hope I can find time to play it a few times this year.

The Great Balloon Race (6 plays) - 6yo nephew's copy is still in the mail from Germany, so when it arrives we'll have to play it a few times. I expect it will get to 5 plays again this year.

Nodwick: The Card Game (5 plays) - This game is popular with medium-sized kids, but I'd probably teach them Ca$h'n'Gun$ first, so it will be struggling for plays. Probably won't get to 5 plays in 2007.

Pick Picknic (5 plays) - 6yo nephew has this and I like it, but whether we'll get to play it 5 times is another matter. I expect not.

Gang of Four (5 plays) - This game is very much in the same space as Frank's Zoo and Tichu and isn't as good as either of those, so I don't think it will see much play this year.

GIPF (5 plays) - Scrabblette likes this, and so do I, so it will see a bit of play for sure, probably more than last year. After all, we've got to do something in bed on Sunday morning, don't we?

San Juan (5 plays) - I bought this in 2005, so the 5 plays in 2006 were as many as I could manage to scrape up without particularly much enthusiasm. I'd like to maintain that number this year, but I expect I won't.

China Moon (5 plays) - I like China Moon a lot but it does have some flaws which means I'll struggle to get it to the table. I'd be surprised if it made 5 plays again.

Xe Queo! (5 plays) - I like this game a lot, and it's easy to teach, so I'll cart it around and try to play it with all and sundry. That means it will probably be played about 5 times.

Scopa (5 plays) - This is an Italian card game that I played only with a lady I was seeing during the year. It wasn't anywhere near as interesting as the lady, so I suspect I won't be playing it again this year.

Rumis (5 plays) - I have an unopened copy of this, and it won't stay that way very long. I think the kids will like this. I can see it being played 5 times this year.

Give Me the Brain! (5 plays) - This game comes out occasionally and will probably continue to do so, but maybe not 5 times in 2007.

Gulo Gulo (5 plays) - This is a great game for little kids, but there are not so many of those in my life at the moment, so it might not see much play in 2007. Maybe if I take up smoking dope it might see some use.

Bamboleo (5 plays) - I bought myself and my sister the kleeblatt edition for Christmas, so it will be played a few times. Maybe even as many as 10.

Igel Ärgern (5 plays) - I like this cute and simple game but not everybody shares my enthusiasm. It will get to 5 plays if I push it, but I suspect I won't. However I'll probably carry it around and it will be played a couple of times.

PÜNCT (5 plays) - I haven't really explored this one yet, and I'd like to. The kid and BIL like it, so I suspect I'll find time for 5 plays in 2007.

Carcassonne (5 plays) - Carc is not a game I go out of my way to play, but other people really do like it. As the kids seem to like it, I suspect I won't be able to avoid it in 2007 and it will see 5 plays again.

Hamsterrolle (5 plays) - Only 5 plays of this beautiful game... what a shame! I expect it will see about the same number in 2007 unless I sell it to Mikey for $5.

Queen's Necklace (5 plays) - This was bought as a back-up Christmas present for my niece last year due to the very unreliable internet store we have here in Australia. I ended up playing it myself. I don't see a need to play it again.

Carrom (5 plays) - Scrabblette is good at this, and I have ambitions to beat her, so we should play it a bit this year. I'd like to see it played regularly which would push it over 10 plays.

Make 'n' Break (5 plays) - This is pretty popular with the kids, so it should see a bit of play this year. I expect 5 plays.

Of course, as I learned last year, you never can tell what's going to happen next.

It's That One!

BGG Secret Santa delivered my Christmas present on Saturday. Since when did Australia Post deliver on Saturdays? Anyway, it was a copy of Xe Queo! shipped from Mind Games in Albury. I checked their on-line catalogue and it was the only game on my Must Have list that they had in stock. so Secret Santa got lucky there. And so did I!

It's a very pretty game - nice colours, and brass rings; but the tokens are quite thin, and the board is not very impressive. The game plays quite OK though, and very quickly - 15 minutes for a game against the kid who is one of the slowest people in the world.

The possible victory conditions are:

1. You move your colour into the ring, and your opponent does not have that colour.
2. Your opponent moves their colour into the ring, and you do have that colour.
3. On your turn you point at a colour and say "it's that one" and your opponent has that colour.

I managed to win the first three rings of the first game using each of those conditions once. In fact I beat the kid 4 rings to 0. In our second game, the kid began to catch on and refrained from moving my piece into the ring so much. We were locked up at 3 rings each and I noticed an attack that I hadn't thought of but which would give the kid victory on his next move. So I pointed out the attacking piece and said "it's that one". I was totally wrong, and the kid won the game. I guess the good news is that he'll want to play again.