Ocasta

I'm just back from spending a long weekend at the Essen games fair. Last year I produced short, capsule reviews of the games I played as the show progressed. This was too much like hard work so this year it's just a simple overview of my thoughts and impressions. There has long been a debate about whether the quality of Essen releases goes in cycles. My impression of the current crop of releases was that while production values continue to increase the uninspiring titles dominated the show. I played between 20 and 25 different game titles over the four days and of these I'd rate five as pleasant and worthy of consideration and two as interesting. Did I play every new release? Of course not. Traders of Carthage A trading game where players the cards are both the goods and the currency. As the goods are bought the ships carrying them sail from Alexandria to Carthage. When one arrives its goods are sold and the ships nearly there are attacked by pirates and may lose their goods. This played well but the components were prototype level

Continue reading "Spiel Essen 2006" »

Comments (0)

Sunday was a bonus day for me. Last year, for the first time in sixteen years of Essening we decided to arrive Wednesday and skip Sunday. Generally by Sunday your brain is screwed-up through too many rules, late nights and alcohol and you've pretty much played everything you wanted to. So going home a day early really didn't matter. We had planned to do the same this year but our airline had other ideas and our flight was until 4pm. This meant an extra half day at the Messe.

After the struggle of Saturday we had a plan - a door opening dash to the back of hall 6 for an explanation and opportunity to play Parthenon from Z-Man comics. Our plan worked perfectly and we had the stand to ourselves. Strangely, Sunday morning seemed very quiet and we needn't have rushed. Part way through the game a German couple we had played Il Principe with way back on Thursday turned up. It was good to see a familiar face.

Parthenon is a game of developing civilizations in the ancient eastern Mediterranean (sound familiar?). This time the emphasis is on trading and investment - there are no people counters at all. Suprisingly for a trading game there was remarkable little player to player trading after Year 1. We were largely playing solitaire against the game system. There are other games that do this and while they aren't my kind of game I thought Parthenon did this rather well. There were plenty of choices of what to build, where to trade and what risks to take for all of us. Although I have the feeling that with repeated play optimum strategies will appear for each nation the random element will keep players alert.

The production uses muted tones and provides lots of card giving good heft value. As I say, not my sort of game, but if this is the type of game your group likes then its worth a look.

After this I tried to get a game of Skyline but failed as my the two German I was playing with became involved in a marital dispute (well it sounded like that anyway, but my German is very poor). So off to the airport

Was this a good Essen? For me this year was as good as recent years. I go to Essen to play new games and appreciate the company. This I did. There were lots of games to try, new companies to discover and old faces to meet. But from my jaded (and critical) point of view there were few games that caught the imagination. If my weekly playing sessions weren't dominated by play-testing I would have bought Indonesia and Kaivai but actually only purchased Railroad Dice 2. As usual I picked up a couple of lighter card games - TaTaTa and (unplayed) Adling Spiel's Zauberschwert & Drachenei with its expansion Helden & Zauberspruche.

Comments (0)

Last weekend was Baycon, one of only a small number of organised game events I go to. Ever since our local weekly game sessions were transformed into play test sessions for Reiner Knizia these are my main opportunities to play the popular games of the moment.

One of the games I played over the weekend was Power Grid. A game that many hardcore gamers rate highly. There are a couple of elements in this game that led me to think about what I refer to as a negative decisions. There are actions in the game that if I take them (for my own reasons) the impact is of greater benefit to another player. In Power Grid it could be buying a power plant that makes another, highly desirable plant available.

These decisions usually lead to at least one player being quite vocal about why you shouldn't do it. Generally these outbursts are motivated by self-interest. A rival is being given an unearned boost. You are supposed to take the option that is less good for your own position because it is for the greater good. Unfortunately nobody else has to make this decision. That doesn't seem like good design to me and is by no means limited to Power Grid.

It doesn't have to be this way. Find a way that allows players to avoid having to choose between two bad decisions, enable positive alternatives. It is even possible for a design to embrace the conflict of self-interest and the greater good, for instance: Republic of Rome.

Comments (0)

As an ardent boardgamer and one who is intimately involved in the process of their creation, I came across this article (NYTimes registration required) on the design of Cranium.

Reiner Knizia in his game of Lord of the Rings also wanted to create a game at odds with normal boardgame conventions when he produced his collaborative game of Lord of the Rings. Dave Farquhar, who was closely involved throughout its development, provides a good insight into the design and evolution this here.

Continue reading "Behind the scenes: Boardgame design" »

Comments (0)