inconsequential ruminations

Play By Web

• Amazons: A dynamic, exciting chess like game. You have six queens each. After every move, they shoot an arrow, which moves like a queen and blocks a square permanently. The last person to be able to move wins. I played Mikko twice at Little Golem. He did not like it, but I did. This was not because I beat him – no irony.
• Gipf: I played once at Boiteajeux and a few times against a freeware implementation with AI. This was disappointing. It was static, boring, and hard to get into.
• Dvonn: I am playing this with Mikko at Little Golem. This is much better than Gipf. It is similar to Focus, but with the innovation of having to stay connected to “islands”.
• Twixt: I have played online a little. This is a fine game. It would be more popular if they could persuade BSW to host it.
• Hex: The only thing separating this from Twixt is the knights move in Twixt. Twixt is therefore faster, while Hex reminds me more of Go. I think I prefer Twixt. Again, I played at Little Golem with Mikko.
• Puerto Rico: I started another slow game. Very enjoyable.

BrettspielWelt

To my amazement, I have made my peace with BSW. I have always hated the interface, but the latest release seems to have ironed out some of these problems. As Joel says:

an application that does something really great that people really want to do can be pathetically unusable, and it will still be a hit. And an application can be the easiest thing in the world to use, but if it doesn’t do anything anybody wants, it will flop.

My username is icheyne and I am still figuring it out. If you see me, please say hello and give me a hand. Does anyone know how to turn off that incredibly annoying yell window for good?

• Piranha Pedro: A cute kid’s game where you have to force your friends into the river by selecting movement simultaneously. Pedro follows everyone’s movement instructions in order.
• Carcassonne: This has more strategy than I remember, but I still think it is horribly overrated.
• San Juan: I was impressed. I am not sure it has a place in my collection for now, as I have so many still to play and I have many lighter games, but I will definitely buy it eventually. The basic mechanic of spending cards is very clever.
• Streetsoccer: Too basic for me, even though there is plenty of skill, but it is a fun way to burn 20 minutes.