Chris has to work, anyway, and Jake agreed to come in to do some playing. It was just us for a while, but then Eugene joined later.
Here's the game report for Monday, March 13, 2006...
Cityscape
Players: Jake, Chris
I have a special affinity for games that are made of wood. The pieces feel more solid than ones made of plastic, and it somehow is more engaging than other media. Cityscape is a finely crafted puzzle game, where each of you is battling for secret goals -- you may even be helping your opponents, unwittingly. This is a two to four player game, with simple rules and painful strategy. We love those around here.
The "City" (the gameboard) is a 4x4 grid. There is a pool of pieces from which all players draw -- there are 5 each of 5 different sized pieces. On a turn, a player picks one of the blocks, and plays it somewhere on the board.
In front of each player is a set of four dice... each player chooses a side for each die in secret, and each one represents a goal for a row of buildings facing that player. The numbers 1 through 4 would represent that number of buildings exactly viewable from your side of the table. In the picture, the leftmost row would be a successful '3', since the first three buildings are visible, but the last would be hidden because it is shorter than the one in front of it.
If you have a 5 on the die, that means your goal is to have at least two buildings the same height. In the picture, the third row would score for a '5'.
If you have a 6 on the die, you are betting that at least one of the buildings in that row is one of the tallest in the city. In the picture, it looks like the 4th row would score on a '6'.
Once all the blocks are placed, each player checks each row to see how it scored. A '1' through '4', if successful, scores ten times that amount ('1' = 10 pts, '2' = 20 pts., etc). A '5', if successful, scores 10 pts for each building that is the same height as another in that row. A '6', if successful, scores 10 pts for each building in that row that is at least as tall as the tallest in the city.
Here's how the 3 games that Chris and Jake played went:
| Jake | Chris | |
| Game 1 | 30 | 50 |
| Game 2 | 30 | 30 |
| Game 3 | 70 | 90 |
| and the totals... | ||
| 130 | 170 | |
It's fun to try to guess what the other player is trying to build. Sometimes you can, and sometimes you can sort of bluff by trying to beef up some building you don't really need to -- it can sometimes force your opponent to actually help you. There is some psycho-strategy involved. But mostly it's just the struggle to make your own goals with a very limited amount of supplies.
It's a great game -- a full game is played in less than 10 minutes, and the end result is a very satisfying city skyline. Cityscape is simple and beautiful...
Quarto!
Players: Jake, Chris
Another new game for me is "Quarto!". This is a game that has been around for a while, but with our new-found enjoyment of simple two-player games like Fire and Ice and Gobblet!, I decided Quarto! was a must have. I knew a little about it before buying it, and it seemed like it would be a good addition to the games we play.And I was right.
Quarto! is another tic-tac-toe variant. In this game, you have a 4x4 board, and are trying to get 4 in a row of pieces that share a common attribute.
There are 16 pieces in the game. They are in a common pool, both players draw from this pool of pieces... no one has a color or anything like that (like in Fire and Ice or Gobblet!), you are just trying to be the person who plays the piece to complete a row.
The pieces are all different, and all have 4 attributes: light/dark, short/tall, square/round, or solid/hollow. A successful 4-in-a-row might be 4 square pieces... or 4 tall pieces in a row. Seems like a pretty straightforward concept... but there is always a twist! Here it is: When it is your turn, you don't get to pick the piece that is being played. Your OPPONENT picks the piece and hands it to you. You are then free to place that piece anywhere on the board.
It can be painful at first. But it is another quick, abstract, strategic game.
We played 5 games...
| Winner | the winning row was... |
| Chris | 4 round pieces |
| Chris | 4 solid pieces |
| Jake | 4 light-colored pieces |
| Chris | 4 square AND solid pieces |
| Chris | 4 light-colored pieces |
Again, it's a quick game... just takes a few minutes. Also, nicely crafted from wood, with a solid wooden base -- very suitable for display. And folks will be sure to ask about it, and you'll be able to get a game going immediately.
Subulata
Players: Jake, Chris
Another new game I bought was called Subulata. It actually has a few hints of elements from other games, but doesn't really steal from ANY of them. Let me try to explain...First, the board is constructed from 9 tiles that have 3x3 spaces on them. Tile placement, like Carcassonne!!! But it is NOTHING like Carcassonne.
Second, you have 9 figures with numbers on their backs, which the opponent cannot see. Secret values like Stratego!!! But it is nothing like Stratego.
Third, your pieces hop sort of diagonally across the board, mainly trying to get to the other side. Hopping pieces to the other side, like Checkers!!! But it is nothing like checkers.
Fourth, the pieces have different abilities to move, and when you land on a space with another player in it, you capture that piece. Different pieces with different movement and capturing pieces, like Chess!!! But it is nothing like chess. Especially because your movement does not depend on the piece, but on the space on which it sits! So a piece may be very mobile on one turn, and get mired down on the next, depending on where it lands.
Each player is trying to get a team of grasshoppers from one side of the 'pond' to the other. There are spaces of just water, spaces of leaves, and spaces of flowers. From a water space, a piece may move one space towards to opposite end's goal. From a leaf, 2 spaces, and from a flower, 3 spaces. You can only move forward. UNLESS, a backwards move allows you to capture an opponent, only then can you move backward.
Once one player cannot move, wither since no pieces are left, or all pieces have made it far enough across the board that there are no more legal moves, the game ends instantly.
Here's how it is scored... add up the value of each grasshopper that made it to the opponent's starting space. Add to that one point for each captured grasshopper.
At the end of the game Chris had 24, Jake had 19.
There is a lot of wicked strategy here, and you have to really pay attention to what can get to your pieces. You have to try to protect your high valued pieces, sometimes sacrificing the lower valued ones to do it. You have to balance moving many pieces across the board with moving a few fast to make sure they make it across the board. The game may end before you'd like, if the other player manages to fly across the board fast.
We only got to play it once, but in that playing, we could both see the potential for great strategy. The fact that the board is randomly created from the nine tiles each time is an interesting touch...
One MAJOR complaint: Like many games, the pieces are not labeled with the numbers when you first open it. It comes with stickers that go on the back of the pieces that you have to put on. The stickers SUCK. They are just awful. They do not stay on well at all... I have to think of something else to do... maybe superglue them on. Or possibly etch the numbers into that back with a pocket knife. Something. It took us ten minutes before the game to find the number 3 sticker for the white pieces! That's unacceptable.
(I can't really complain, actually... the sole reason I bought the game was because it was $5 at Funagain.)
Lost Cities
Players: Jake, Chris
We went on to play an old favorite... Lost Cities. It is a very simple card game where each player embarks on virtual archeological digs. The cards you play have values that show how much the project pays off. Once you've played a card, you can only play cards that are greater than it on the same pile. There's planning, risk-taking, sometimes hoarding cards your opponent might need, with a little bit of both strategy and tragedy. We like this game a lot.
And since it's one we both know well, we can play it QUICKLY. Cards were being slammed onto the table with barely a second between them, as if playing the cards faster would have allowed us to gather better ones.
For each expedition you begin, you have to deduct 20 points to pay off your investors, so, if you don't make enough, you can actually fall into negative point land.
Here's how the game turned out:
Chris ended with a score of +1, Jake had -5. It was a very close low-scoring game; neither of us had good hands at all!
This is a great two-player card game.
Cityscape (again!)
Players: Jake, Chris, and Tom M. later replaced by Eugene
Tom Molski was drifting by, and we convinced him to try one game with us -- his condition was that it had to be a short one. Well, we had already found that Cityscape takes less than 10 minutes, so we gave him a quick run-down of the rules, and the three of us got into a game.
Here's how it turned out:
| Jake | Tom M. | Chris |
| 60 | 10 | 20 |
Jake did quite well.
Tom left after this one game, as he had promised. But this was just as Eugene was arriving. Since we already had the game out, we gave him a game overview and played again. (It IS a good game!)
| Jake | Eugene | Chris |
| 90 | 50 | 40 |
Jake is victorious again.
Mexica
Players: Jake, Eugene, Chris
This is a large game, with what seems to be an unwieldy amount of rules. Once you get the knack, it is a very playable strategy game. It reminds me a lot of Torres, a game we have enjoyed in the past, in that it has a series of round, a limited number of building pieces each round, and points where you stop and score the table. But it is different enough to make it fresh and fun.
On each turn a player has 6 action points to spend on moving around, building canals, building bridges, building buildings, among other things. Each player is trying to form small areas surrounded by canals of specific sizes, determined by randomly drawn tiles. Once an area is made, players scramble to build the largest and most buildings in that area.
The specifics are way too tricky to discuss here, but in the context of the game, it all seems to make sense.
Here's the score at the end:
| Jake | Eugene | Chris |
| 105 | 94 | 95 |
Jake is having a good day!
Final thoughts: this is a great game of strategy and balance. You can sort of store up action points you don't use and cash them in later to have a mega turn. It seems that hanging back and then pouncing like mad is a pretty good strategy. Jake did have a dominance on one end of the board, but his win was certainly not predetermined -- I think both Eugene and I felt like we had a chance until the last score count.
A few more plays of this game will help flush out the strategies... once you get past the full-sized 12 page instruction booklet, there is a pleasant, beautiful game waiting for you.
Wallamoppi
Players: Jake vs Chris, then Jake vs Eugene
Another class of games we have begun to enjoy are the building games. We like Villa Paletti quite a bit -- strategic construction at its best.I decided to pick up a copy of Wallamoppi, which is a two-player, fast-paced stacking game.
The game takes place in two parts... in the first part, each player chooses a color, either the light or the dark colored disks, and each player grabs a disk of that color. The remaining pieces are put into a little bag, and each player, in turn, draws a disk and begins making a triangular shaped wall of disks. Once all the pieces are placed into the wall, each player places the pieces they grabbed at the beginning to complete the tower.
Now the fun begins.
Each player has a few seconds to draw a disk from the wall in that player's color, and put it on top of the stack to form a tower of disks. The time they have is determined by a marble dropping down a series of ramps as shown in the background of the picture (you can see the marble on the final ramp!). It goes like this: one player drops the marble, the other player has to draw out a disk, put it on top of the stack, and 'catch' the marble before it hits the bottom of the final ramp. Then THAT player drops the marble onto the top ramp, and the next player has a few seconds to do the same thing.
It is very frenetic and crazy, though a steady hand is required. I played a couple games and was a little worn out.
Three games were played, and here's how they went:
| WINNER | LOSER | WHY DID THE LOSER LOSE? |
| Jake | Chris | Chris missed the marble! |
| Chris | Jake | The tower toppled on Jake's turn! |
| Eugene | Jake | Once again, Jake was responsible for the tower's fall! |
It's a really fun silly game. There is actually a little strategy in the construction part of the game, but there is a LOT of luck there, too. Once the tower building begins, it gets a little crazy and funny. I found it as fun to watch the game as it was to play it.
I'm really happy I got this game. It is wonderfully constructed of all wooden pieces. It really satisfies that youthful urge to build up some blocks, and then watch them fall down. It's simple and fun.
The game is specifically for 2 players, but, if you ignore the colors of the pieces, I think it could potentially be played by more... we'll have to try that some time...
Monkeys on the Moon
Players: Jake, Eugene, Chris
This is a game which came up as half price when I was buying all my other recent purchases at Funagain. As an astronomer, I couldn't help but by a game called "Monkeys on the Moon".I did have a hesitation, because I own another game by Eight Foot Llama, the manufacturer of this game. I have "Who Stole Ed's Pants", which I do not enjoy. The game is very complex, with unnecessarily convoluted game mechanics all ending with a fizzle of an ending -- there is very little satisfaction at game end.
Monkeys on the Moon is another, seemingly similar game. There are a bunch of different small card decks that make up the mechanics of the game. Monkey cards, Civilization cards, Ship cards, Tribe cards, and Monkey Scorn cards are all separate decks, and have different uses. When you throw in Monkey Tribe Stones and Favor Tokens in 6 different colors, this little box has a daunting amount of parts.
I decided I would go at this game without any preconceived notions... I wanted to enjoy it. And I am glad that I did.
Again, at first glance it seems overwhelming. But once you immerse yourself in the flow, it kind of makes sense. Quick reference cards allow you to keep track of your turn easily -- these cards make the game possible: short, step-by-step instructions.
Let's step back at look at the backstory of the game -- Many years ago, monkeys were sent to the moon, where they started a new civilization, and divided themselves into tribes. Some are friends, and some are enemies -- these relationships are decided at random at the start of the game.
Whenever you help out a tribe, you garner their favor, but at the same time, you piss off the opposing tribe. Balancing the anger of the tribes is key to success.
I will try to summarize the game: There is a board marking the progress of each tribe. At the beginning of your turn, you promote one of the tribes. Then, you look at some monkeys, and start a bidding round on one of them. You bid on them using favor tokens you gathered when promoting the tribe. As you win monkeys, you load them onto spacecraft and launch them back to their long lost home of Earth.
You collect the cards of the monkeys and ships launched back to Earth.
Once all the civilizations have moved up as far as possible (by playing all the civilization cards) each player sees how much value they've earned from the monkeys and ships they've launched.
There is another layer to the game mechanic -- the furthest promoted tribes are worth the most points. So, the value of the tribes is counted, and the folks with the highest values in a tribe get points related to how far that tribe has proceeded.
Here's the breakdown of points by tribe at the end of the game...
| Jake | Eugene | Chris | |
| Red Tribe | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Green Tribe | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| Blue Tribe | 4 | 7 | 0 |
| Purple Tribe | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Black Tribe | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Brown Tribe | 0 | 6 | 3 |
| TOTALS | 15 | 17 | 9 |
Eugene wins!
It was kind of a funny game, and I could see it being quite clever and competitive with 4 players (the maximum). I'm glad I took a chance on this one.
Girl Genius: The Works
Players: Jake, Eugene, Chris
This is a game I have had for a while, and I enjoy it a bunch. It has a completely different game mechanic than any other I have ever played. The cards a laid out on the table in alternating directions, so it sort of looks like they mesh into each other (the picture shows how the board of cards looks). During your turn, you flip a facedown card (if there is one), and then turn a card of your choice 180 degrees. When this happens, it's possible that icons along the edge of the cards match. When they do, the card with more of the icons "pops"! That means it comes out of the board, and the player then has to follow some directions on the bottom of the card. Some cards are good, some are bad, some are neither, but all have a point value. And you want to collect points.The first person to collect 100 points wins. There are a couple other ways to instantly win described on popped cards, but the most likely way to win is to collect the points.
The scores at the end of game were:
| Jake | Eugene | Chris |
| 62 | 101 | 91 |
It didn't seem that Eugene was doing that well... I think he was as surprised he won as Jake and I!
This is a nice game to fill up some time. It can be hard to plan strategy at times, but you really can manipulate the board to succeed. And once you have learned all (or at least MOST) the cards and their effects, you can use them to your advantage.
Girl Genius: fun game, dramatically different from any other game I know.
Earthquake
Players: Jake, Eugene, Chris
Our first Game Day Road Trip!!!
We were hungry, Jake suggested Chinese food, so we went to a restaurant across from the college called Golden Moon. In case you care, we had Cold Sesame Noodles (YUM!) to start, and shared some Kung Pao Chicken, and Garlic Pork.
While we were waiting (which was a remarkably SHORT period of time, great service!) we played a game of Earthquake.
Earthquake is a card game. The cards have 5 suits (people who play Magic: The Gathering will recognize the suits as the different land types). At the beginning of a turn, a player discards all cards played on that player's previous turn. Each player gets 2 plays per turn. You play a set of cards (one or more) of the same suit to the table. You earn points equal to the number of cards you are playing TIMES the number of those cards on the table (including what you are putting down). SO, if you play three green cards, and there is no green on the table, you get 9 points (3 cards times three cards). If the next player plays two cards, it is worth ten points (two card being played times 5 (the two being played plus the three on the table)).SO, each player tries to play the best collection on top of what was already played. There are wild cards, and other special cards which give instant points or more cards or more plays per turn. There is also the dreaded Earthquake card which clears the whole table of played cards.
It is a simple, quick game. There is some strategy in deciding what to play. You may have a big collection of a suit, and you may decide to play one card from that suit to try to draw out other players to play that suit, and then pounce on that when it comes back around to you for exponentially higher points!
We played for about 5 minutes, and quit when the food came... here's the result:
| Jake | Eugene | Chris |
| 22 | 54 | 53 |
Eugene wins!
Lots of new games, lots of games played, on a day when we weren't even going to meet because we were on break! AND our first road trip! Not a bad game day that wasn't supposed to happen.
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