inconsequential ruminations

I am holiday in Paris at the moment. On the first day I headed out to the shops and had a look around. There are three good shops within five minutes of Notre Dame:

• Variantes , Rue St André des Arts, Métro Chatelet.
• Starplayer, Rue Dante, Métro Maubert.
• Descartes, Rue Meissonnier, Métro Wagram.

Apparently, there is another in the vicinity, but I have not been there:

• Fireball, Rue Mr Le Prince, Metro Odeon.

I was interested to see the other geeky shops in the area; the French seem to be more into models, comics and sci-fi than the British. Certainly, there seems to be more of that sort of thing in Paris than London.

We visited a small town called Chartres the other day and I was surprised to find a regular toyshop with an impressive selection of German games. I wish Britain was more exposed to this sort of quality.

Unsurprisingly, the contents of the shops mirror Bruno Faidutti’s site closely, both in terms of the games he designs and the games he recommends.

I had to buy Shazamm, even though I know it probably will not get much play in the long-term, but it’s lots of light fun and I would like to see how Ness reacts to it – if I can ever persuade her to play.

I also bought Nicht die Bohne. I do not really need any more lightweight card games, but this one sounds like a cut above the rest.

I just finished a PBW game of Shazamm! with Michael at Boitajeux.

I cannot beat Bruno Faidutti’s description of the mechanics. The PBW implementation is smooth and easy to understand with Google Language Tools doing the work. I enjoyed it very much for slapstick. Michael hated the luck factor. I admit there is lots of luck involved, but ultimately both sides have the same resources, so the end of the game could be skilful, particularly if you choose the variant that gives both players their full complement of spells immediately.

I won, which pleased me, as Michael is always a tough opponent. The only other two-player game I have won against him was Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. Maybe it is significant that these are both bluffing games?

I will probably buy Shazamm, particularly as the components look good, but I do not get too many opportunities to play two-player games, so I will have to think about it.

We played Showmanager with five people on Wednesday night.

Showmanager is a decent, but unspectacular, welterweight game. It is basically a rummy-like set collection game, but with a great theme. You play the part of an impresario finding performers for musicals. The artiste cards have very funny and very German portraits on them. They remind me of satirical political cartoons, or the cartoonists of Leicester Square in London, or the Charles Bridge in Prague. I have not seen Drunter und Druber, but it seems to have similar artwork.

You have to make tough decisions about what sets to collect, but it is not too analytical and turns shift reasonably quickly.

My only complaint is that it is easy for careless players, or learners, to forget the rule that you have to have two cards left in your hand after every musical. The only fair ways to fix this are to force players to put on a different musical with more cards or to randomly take cards from their hands. These solutions hit scores hard for an easy mistake.

It is out of print and quite hard to find now. There was a later rethemed version called Atlantic Star, about Atlantic steamers, but cannot be as good as it is the theme and artist cards that really make Showmanager.

I probably will not make the effort to get this, as it is a bit too light and gentle for my mob, but it would work very well for families and non-gamers.

My friend Michael has started to put some of his session reports online. They are very detailed and high quality.

Seven showed up yesterday – almost a record.

Citadels
It was Ness’ week to choose, so she went for her reflex Citadels choice. It was slow with seven, but we only played for six buildings, which made it bearable. We had a lot of fun with so many people, but today even Ness said she was getting bored of it. It is still a great game, particularly for non-gamers, but we need a break.

Pit
We had not tried this one before and I had heard it was best with more players, so we played my superbly kitsch 1970’s version, with a bright orange bell. We had a good time, but I was disappointed with how little thinking was involved. Beforehand I had assumed that you have to trade specific commodities with other players, but in fact, you only call out how many cards you have in your hand and swap blind. It is nothing more than organising your hand and exchanging your cards as quickly as possible. Still, the bell was very popular and I will keep it aside for rowdy and/or young gamers.

Don
Three left early, so we had a quick round of the strangely underrated Don. It is definitely one of my best shorter games. I much prefer it to For Sale or Vom Kap Bis Kairo, rival auctions-based fillers. Don requires more thought, while still being dynamic and vicious – definitely a late-night game for men.

Sadly, we could not play anything substantial with so many, but the evening was still a big success with even more banter and laughter than usual.

I have sampled some play-by-web games recently. All the links to the PBW games are on this excellent geeklist.

• Bus: I was disappointed by this. The web implementation was good, but the game itself felt like a bit of a mess. It did not help that the gaps between turns were too long, so the game lost continuity, but I was confused almost until the end of the game. I thought about Bus while reading Greg Aleknevicus’ article German Games are Fraudulent. Bus has a fun theme, but it does not fit the mechanics enough. Having said that, what sort of theme could match such confusing mechanics? I think Bus might be better stripped down and presented as a purely abstract game. It could be that it would be much less confusing played face-to-face.
• Hare and Tortoise: This true classic works very well PBW.
• Robo Rally: I only dabbled with the tutorials but it felt more like a video game than any of the games I have played so far. It seems like an enjoyable but shallow free-for-all luckfest.
• Blue Max: I have only just started this, but so far I am very impressed. I read the rules to this as a 12 or 13 year old at a friend’s house and wanted to play it but never got around to it. The web implementation is very slick and it looks likes this will work very well. I played a similar game pbem, called Sopwith at For Whom The Web Rocks, but did not enjoy it because it was slow moving. Fortunately, Blue Max is more elaborate and the computer-moderated PBW interface speeds it up and makes order generation easy.
• De Bellis Antiquitatis : This is a huge download and orders go via a server between the clients, so it does not really qualify as PBW as it is not played through a browser. It was handy for polishing up my DBA technique, but the interface is clunky, to match the slightly clumsy rules of DBA. It is also expensive, so can only really be recommended for DBA fanatics.
• TransAmerica: I had heard this game was simple, but I was suprised to see how simple! Some have said this barely qualifies as a game and I can understand that. I can see this would be great for parents and young children, but I am suprised this is so popular with adults.
• Puerto Rico: This is rough around the edges but all the important stuff works very well. I hope the server comes back online soon.

Executive Decision

We played a three-player game of this 1971 Sid Sackson business game last Wednesday. I had heard mixed reviews, but it sounded different and it is still talked about, despite being as old as me, so I bought it an unused copy on eBay for £10, which did not seem like an unrealistic gamble.

Executive Decision has to be the most perfect economics game ever produced. It encapsulates the concept of supply and demand perfectly. The 1971 components are fantastically old-school: just some Monopoly money, a laminated blue board covered with tables, a crayon and player record sheets. It is such a contrast to modern components like those in Pirate’s Cove. Some might dislike them, but I think they add to the charm of the game.

Players have to make as much profit for their corporation as possible in twelve months. To do this, they invest in raw materials, make finished goods and sell them. All decisions are taken in secret and revealed simultaneously. If people choose the same options, raw materials are more expensive or sold goods are cheaper. This emulates supply and demand and the uncertainty of markets exquisitely. You have to think about the desires of the players, given the raw materials they already hold and which options they are likely to choose. Although there is a lot of luck with the secret action selection, this is a subtle, skilful game.

Unfortunately there are some aspects of Executive Decision that show its age. Firstly, it is very dry. Players only use paper and pencil to micro-manage financial figures. There is lots of arithmetic required which will drive off a lot of people. One player said it reminded him too much of his work. Secondly, once players are behind, it’s difficult to catch up, as this is a game of incremental gains and losses. I got a big lead at the start of this playing as I quickly realised it is fatal to price yourself out of deals. By the time the others realised this, I was comfortably ahead and impossible to rein in.

Bruno Faidutti normally dislikes dry games, but gives one a surprisingly good review. I think this is because of the blind bidding and it is certainly an original, thoughtful game. After playing lots of light German games recently, Executive Decision felt like reading the Financial Times after a regular diet of the Daily Mail. I would not play this all the time, but occasionally it would be good to stretch my mind and arithmetical skills.