inconsequential ruminations

Issue 27 of The Games Report is now online.

This online/offline magazine was one of my first sources in my boardgaming renaissance. As it’s only occasionally updated, it’s out of date, but it’s still worth a look as the reviews are quality.

Peter Sarrett is the only reviewer who attempts to grade a game’s skill level and complexity. The only other prolific reviewer to attempt this is Bruno Faidutti and he rates complexity and quality of components.

As I wrote before, I accidentally discovered that one of my sculling friends plays Go.

On a whim, I messaged him on AIM and he came over. We played a quick 9×9. He gave me a two stone advantage and still beat by three stones, due to a careless mistake. He even lent me his proper Japanese board and stones, so that when he is cycling home from work, he can drop over for a game. :o)

I’ve finished a couple of PBW games recently.

Wallenstein
This was a particularly interesting experience. PBW gives you the opportunity to feel Wallenstein’s mechanics, without the distraction of the attractive pieces and the dice tower. Now I can safely say that Wallenstein a simple cross between Risk and El Grande, with secret actions. The lovely pieces and dice tower tend to distract from this, although in an enjoyable way.
Like most very political games, it’s a mistake to be ahead in the mid-game. The leader and second place players at half-way were hammered.
Wallenstein has lost some of it’s initial shine with me, but I’ll still buy it as soon as I can scrape some spare cash together.

StreetSoccer
This is a nice little game, but I don’t feel any desire to buy it. It would be a nice gateway game for a football fan, so long as they were not looking for something too heavy. There certainly seems to be quite a lot of genuine skill involved, as the designer, Corné van Moorsel, is one of the top rated players.

I’m starting a game of Bus at Spielbyweb. Anyone care to join me? It’s called Ding ding, no password.

I was just destroyed in a game of Acquire at For Whom The Web Rocks.

I don’t feel too bad, as it was only my second game. I made the mistake of blowing my resources on the biggest two chains, and did not get an income from smaller ones.

Acquire works quite well in this human-moderated play-by-web format. The game took two and a half months to finish, but it didn’t drag. Unfortunately, one of my moves was input incorrectly, which was annoying. Human-error and time-lag are the biggest problems with manually-moderated PBEM.

I’ve known most of my gaming buddies since boyhood and we mainly game to stay in touch, as we’ve all grown out of going out on the lash every single weekend. Unfortunately, it’s been difficult to get some of our old buddies to show up, as they are not gaming types. Happily one of our oldest mutual non-gamer friends showed up to see what it’s all about.

Rette Sich Wer Kann
This was perfect as my newbie friend was very tired and we were in the mood for something fun and interactive. He’s definitely the kind of guy who enjoys serious competition. I cannot see myself ever taking this out of my collection. Everybody gets huge laughs out of it and it never really hurts to lose, as it’s so light-hearted. Fittingly, and unsurprisingly in a purely political game, my newbie friend won.

Linie 1
I got this for the bargain price of €6 from Adam-Spielt, which turned into €12.50 after postage costs – not such a bargain, but still good. Unfortunately, the box is massive, about twice as big as it needs to be, which will probably reduce the length of time it stays on my shelf. Maybe I’ll find a smaller box somewhere and decant the components into that?

We played played a three-player two-stop game using the Streetcar rules, with diceless movement. We were a bit tired, so the simplicity of Linie 1 appealed to us, but not the lack of obvious strategy. I mainly got this one due the strongest possible recommendation from Rick Heli, whose Spotlight On Games! site is one of the best gaming resources on the net. Rick makes this comment on it:

the game has been called “broken” because of what has been termed its “conflicting goals.” I guess that is another way of saying that there is no clear indication of exactly what steps are needed to obtain victory. Complainants will state that the three main goals in the game are incompatible with one another: (1) minimize the number of stops on your route, (2) minimize your route length, (3) minimize the amount of time to complete your route. But on the other hand this is what makes the game so fascinating

I’m interested in testing this out further, but definitely with more players and more stops, maybe even the four-stop variant on the Geek?

The original article explaining the piecepack is now at piecepack.org.

[via Ron’s Info-Closet Annex]