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November 08, 2005

BGG.Con Games Played

New games to me played (in order of rating) at BoardGameGeek.Con this past week. Surprisingly, I played no actually bad games (or at least don't remember them - lost my list and had to reconstruct it). Games are listed by highest rated first. The only two I am inclined to buy are the first two, which are unfortunately 60 Euros and immediately sold out at Essen, respectively, so I'll see. If anyone has a suggestion on getting either, let me know.

Indonesia - 8.5 - This is the newest release from Splotter (Roads & Boats, Antiquity, etc...) and I think by far the best so far. It is still a bit fiddly but not nearly so much as their other games and the elements left are all important - it really feels like they put a lot of effort into removing unnecessary complexity. The upgrade track, merger mechanism and forced shipping rule are all absolutely excellent. The only thing really lacking in this game is the graphic design of the board, where the artist went too far with script and curvy lines, but we found it didn't really detract from the actual game. Also, on the plus side was the very smart decision to use both cardboard chits (for 1s and 5s) and paper money (for higher denominations) as the 5 counters make shipping payments much easier to track and the paper money makes the larger sums hidden and more space efficient. Kudos again to the upgrade track where all the different upgrades seem really well balanced and the track rewards neither specialization nor diversity, allowing players to pursue very different strategies and hopefully all be competitive. This game is quite long (say 3 hours) but with lots of interesting decisions and I was never bored. One of the players in our game was already in another game of this the next day I saw him and I was kind of envying him. 60 Euros is outrageously expensive (although the components are nice) but I will still probably buy it. Definitely the game I am most looking forward to playing again. Still it is long and complex enough that I can see my rating shifting up or down by a full point depending on how future plays go. As with other Splotter games, this is a game for the analytical types - one player in a game of this I watched just didn't get the game at all and was just frustrated the entire time and wanting the game to end so definitely not for everybody.

Shear Panic - 8 - The pieces in this are unbelievably cute and absolutely do seem to come straight out of Aardman Animation (the Wallace & Gromit studio). Looking at them, one expects a very light game but that isn't at all what one gets. This is in reality a multi-player abstract with intricate and changing scoring systems throughout and a lot to think about as you try to guess what other players will do and carefully look at their boards to see what they can do. I really enjoyed this and the sheep really are the best bits in any game I have seen in years. Surprisingly, the other elements of the game (score track and player action sheets) seem to be just laminated laser prints or something but who cares with these amazing sheep?! Apparently this was only like $15-20 at Essen and if I was there I would have bought a bunch of copies but no surprise at all it sold out - hopefully it will be reprinted or I can get a copy some other way.

E&T cardgame - 7.5 - The rules are very similar to the boardgame but the play isn't nearly as much and I don't think there is room for nearly as interesting plays to happen. Also, the scores both times I played were too low and too close such that very small changes could have had any other player win - I don't think this one has nearly as much room for skillful play. Also, of course it doesn't look nearly as nice as the gorgeous Doris board.

Caylus - 7 - This game got played a ton, due to the early hype and that there was one woman at the convention actually being paid to teach it to people (apparently taught it to 12 groups and this is a 2-3 hour game). Many really liked it but I wasn't one of them. It is slow, actions are too unbalanced, going first is too much of an advantage, the provost moves are too powerful and unpredictable (and how much negotiation you play with will make a big
difference) and there are endgame kingmaker problems. In our game, 3 different people could have won depending on if the game had ended when it did or a turn earlier or later and this was largely in the control of the uninvolved players. There is no way I can see this keeping its current BGG rank. I'll play again I'm sure but will not be suggesting this one.

Havoc - 6.5 - I was taught this by KC Humphrey, the designer, and we played a short version of it and I enjoyed it a fair bit. However, I must admit to being quite annoyed at the very unintuitive second tiebreaker, particularly after pretty nicely playing a very risky strategy of having to win both final battles and succeeding to get into the tie. The second tiebreaker, however, turned out to be fewest cards (troops) in hand which makes absolutely no sense to me (KC said it was to reward "efficiency"). If at the end of a war, two kings remain and one has significantly greater troop strength, which do you think would get better terms in a peace deal? This also led to the ridiculous situation of the other player throwing away troops in a totally losing battle just to get them out of his hand for the tiebreaker - utterly ridiculous IMO. Reverse this tiebreaker, KC.

Lucca Citta - 6 - Reminded me quite a bit of Palazzo. The mechanism of using the shields to determine turn order but then spending them to build the building works quite well but basically the result seems like it will be pretty random.

Ark - 6 - New Doris & Frank game. Cute as usual but not as cute as many of their other games. The luck of the draw/flip of the player before you may play a bit too much of a role as does the advantage gained by the player on your left using lots of action chips. In our game, I also found the Shy animals exceedingly difficult to play and got stuck with 3 of them in my hand at the end.

Posted by aarondf at November 8, 2005 11:17 AM

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