I Need Gaming Rehab

I'm thinking that I may need to check into rehab. I ordered three games this morning at Amazon.

The first game is Campaign Manager 2008 by Z-Man Games. I listened to Episode #38 this morning of Game On! with Cody and John. They had a fairly positive review of it, and I was hooked by their description. The game uses a card-play mechanic to re-create the 2008 presidential campaign, with one player managing the McCain campaign and the other managing the Obama campaign. The game was designed by Christian Leonhard and Jason Matthews. Matthews was the co-designer of one of my all-time favorite games, GMT's Twilight Struggle, which uses similar mechanics to re-create the Cold War. The pair also teamed up for 1960: The Making of a President (also published by Z-Man) that re-creates the 1960 US presidential election. Kathryn gave me 1960 for Christmas last year, but I haven't had a chance to play it yet. (Yes -- I realize the irony of buying a game because it's similar to another game that I haven't yet taken out of the box. I already said that I need rehab.) Campaign Manager is supposed to be faster and easier than 1960. I'm hoping to give it a try with Gillian in Jamaica next month.

I also ordered Hive by Gen 42. Hive is an abstract strategy game that I'd describe as 30% dominoes + 30% chess + 30% Go + 10% other abstracts. Like dominoes, players place pieces on a table (with no playing board) to build a line of play. The pieces, however, are hex-shaped, creating a bee-hive shape as the pieces are played. Like Go, each player has a "deck" of pieces -- black or white. The pieces, however, are marked with insect icons and can be moved after placement, chess-like, with each insect having its own movement rules. The goal is to surround the other player's queen bee. I had seen photos of the game at BoardGameGeek and read some positive reviews. I don't normally like abstracts, but the game's portability (as it is played without a board) and the small number of total pieces (10 per side) appealed to me enough that I downloaded the iPhone app for $3.99 last week. Patrick and I played a few games this weekend (on the iPod Touch), and we enjoyed it enough that I ordered the physical version. (The game had been listed for $35 at Amazon, but it was marked down to $25 today.)

Finally, I ordered the Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #2 from an Amazon reseller, Old Fort Games. As I discussed in my February 18th posting, I was getting a little disgusted with the length of time that it has taken Multiman Publishing to ship my copy of the Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1, which I ordered on February 8th. I finally got ahold of a human being today at MMP, and she told me that my order would probably ship in the next couple of days. I had already decided that I was going to order the second starter kit after I received the first -- figuring that it would arrive about the time that Andrew and I finished working our way through the first. But I really want to have the rulebook to take with me to Jamaica. And the way MMP is going, I didn't know if they would make it in time. (The second starter kit's rules include the first kit's rules, plus additional rules for mortars and big guns.) At this point, I'm not a happy MMP customer.