EPL Game Version 2.0

On Christmas, Patrick and I played another game of the English Premier League soccer game that I discussed in an earlier post. Once again the stats were quite realistic: Chelsea and Manchester City tied 2-2. Drogba scored both Chelsea goals, while Tevez and Adebayor scored for Man City.

The problem is that the game just isn't very exciting to play. A typical game takes about 30 minutes and goes as follows: Patrick and I roll the dice non-stop saying "nothing happens," occaissionally passing the dice to the other person. About once a minute the die roller says "scoring opportunity," makes two more die rolls and says "misses it," followed by more die rolling. About six times during that half hour a shot actually makes it to the keeper, and about half of the time it's an actual goal.

Now I can hear millions of Americans saying that it sounds exactly like a typical soccer game. And, in some ways they're right (except that it's 90 minutes for those six scoring chances). It may be the case that the game is a perfect statistical model of Premier League football, but it's really not fun. Dennis watched us play for about the first 15 die rolls (about two minutes) before walking away.

So, it was back to the drawing board this week. (I'm telling myself that dreaming up new ways of statistically modeling a soccer match and working through the numbers is good "exercise" for my day job.) I think that I've got a better way of dealing with it -- essentially a pair of die rolls (one for each team) will tell the players how many opportunities they have for the next 10 minutes -- removing one layer of "nothing."

Patrick and I will probably try it out Friday night or Saturday. I've got a feeling that he'll just want to keep it the way it is, but we'll see what happens.

Merry Christmas to All

As is our Christmas tradition, Al and I met up for some gaming this afternoon. Our original plan was to play Tide of Iron, but we were both a little tired, so we decide to play Battle Cry instead.

As I've mentioned several times in the last few posts, Battle Cry is a tactical game of battles from the US Civil War. It was the first in Richard Borg's Commands and Colors system.

We played two scenarios (battles) -- The First Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Chickamauga. Both games were close, but I won them both 6-5.

The game is a great introductory wargame and would be the perfect choice for a new wargamer who wants to fight Civil War battles. The game was only in print for a short time when it was first released in 2000, and its price on the used-game market was quite high in recent years. Copies still in shrinkwrap were selling for over $80, and used copies typically sold for about $50. However, Avalon Hill reprinted the game last month (with some fairly minor changes), so gamers looking for a new copy can now find one at a list price of $45.

Games that end in 0

It's traditional this time of year for gaming bloggers and podcasters to publish their "Best Games of the Year" lists -- and I plan to give mine early in the new year. I'm waiting a few weeks until the official end of the year, however, in case I get a few more plays in during my vacation. (You never know how one more play might change my feelings towards a game.)

It's also an end-of-the-year tradition for many folks to give a retrospective list of the "Best Games From ... " fill-in-the-blank ... five, ten or twenty years ago. Looking over my collection of rated games, I realize that I really can't give a "Best of" list for any of these years, since I haven't played more than a few games from any of these years. So, I hereby give my list of ...

Favorite Games Published in a Year Ending in Zero
(other than 2010):

7. It's not a very good game, but it earns a sentimental mention because it's the first game I can remember playing: Hi-Ho! Cherrio was first published in 1960.

6. I gave Tyranno Ex (published in 1990) to my neice in the early '90s because she liked dinosaurs. She and I played one game, and I thought it was very interesting. It presents the general theme of evolutionary biology in a very abstract way. Although it was published by Avalon Hill, it used (what would today be described as) Euro mechanics. I was hoping that GMT's new game Dominant Species would be similar, but it's not.

5. Swashbuckler (published in 1980) was always a popular distraction for our group. Players control patrons brawling at a tavern. It was always a little too chaotic for my tastes, but you have to love a game where you can give an order to swing on a chandelier. It also has a number of sketches on its cover lifted from Errol Flynn movies.

4. I've only played it a couple of times, but War and Peace (published in 1980 by Avalon Hill) is the definitive strategic hex-and-counter wargame depicting the Napoleonic Wars. The GMT game The Napoleonic Wars is more fun, but War and Peace has the old-school feel to it.

3. I don't even have a copy of Vince Lombardi's (football) Game (published in 1970) anymore. Dennis received it as a Christmas present, and I remember watching him play using its solitaire rules. I played it dozens of times while Dennis was in the navy, and a number of high school friends (including Al, Rick, Steve, Doug, Paul S.) and I had a league using the game in 1982. Strat-o-Matic is a better game for statistical accuracy, but Vince Lombardi's Game was very elegantly designed. Pizza Box Football would probably come closest to capturing its feel.

2. I hated Battle Cry (published in 2000 by Avalon Hill) the first time I played it with Al. It was the first game in Richard Borg's Commands and Colors system. It wasn't until several years later, when Andrew and I played Memior '44, that I came to appreciate the system. I'm glad to see that Battle Cry is getting a makeover by Avalon Hill this year.

1. I remember seeing Avalon Hill's Civilization at the Smithsonian Museum of American History gift shop shortly after it was re-published by Avalon Hill. (It was originally published by Hartland Trefoil in 1980.) The description on the box got me hooked, and I got the game as a gift shortly after. The game's massive length-of-play keeps it from being pulled out too often, but it is a remarkable game. How remarkable is it? Sid Meier acknowledges that it helped to motivate the design for his historic computer game (which subsequently has inspired two board games -- one by Eagle Games and one by Fantasy Flight).

Premier League Soccer Game

I've been an amatuer game designer nearly as long as I can remember. I started 40 years ago -- making up my own games using a deck of cards when I was bored on Sunday afternoons at Grandma's house. I can recall playing Kingmaker for the first time in 1976 and then making up a simplified version the next day at school. A group of friends and I spent much of 7th grade English class playing my version of the game. Al and I developed a space exploration game (what today would be refered to as a 4x game) in 1983 that went under several names, including The Carl Sagan Game and Mercantilism. For much of the 1980s and early 1990s, Mercantilism was our group's most-played game. We probably would still play it, but Twilight Imperium has much the same feel (plus cool plastic pieces).

During the 1970s I created a number of sports games, including baseball, football and hockey. The baseball game was eventually replaced in 1981 by APBA, and the football game was eventually replaced in 1982 by Strat-o-Matic. The hockey alternatives, however, were always weak. I played dozens of games of Strat-o-Matic Hockey and APBA Hockey over the years, but wasn't impressed with either of them. So, my hockey game never really disappeared during this time. In fact, Rick, Fred, Al, Doug, Mike and I had a hockey league for three years using my game.

As I've mentioned before, both boys are really into soccer, especially the English Premier League. I've been trying to learn the players, and last week I came up with the idea of redoing my hockey game as a soccer game. So far, the game is a success; Patrick and I played three games last weekend pitting my Chelsea against his favorite Manchester City. Man City won the first game, 2-1, with a pair of goals from Carlos Tevez. (Frank Lampard notched the sole Chelsea tally.) The second game was all Chelsea; Didier Drogba's two goals combined with one each by Lampard and Nicolas Anelka for a 4-0 score. In the third game, Lampard and Tevez traded goals at the beginning of the second half, but Drogba's 60th-minute goal proved the difference-maker in a 2-1 Chelsea win.

So far the game is getting the stats right. Obviously the correct people are scoring, and given the final table from last season, it's not surprising that Chelsea would dominate (although interestingly enough, Man City did win both matches in the real season last year, with Tevez scoring two of their three goals). There are parts of the game that seem awfully repetitive to me, but to the extent that Patrick represents the target audience, the market research is coming back positive. Right now I'm working on adding yellow and red cards. The next step will be to sort out how formations will factor into the game.

Anyone willing to playtest should let me know.

The Week in Review

1. I managed to pull defeat from the jaws of victory in the History of the World game I was winning at GamesByEmail. Steve slipped into first place on the last turn and won with 194 points to my 189. Oh well, second place is better than I've been doing.

2. Patrick and I played the Battle of Akragas scenario in Commands and Colors: Ancients last weekend. This is probably the 12th time we've played this scenario -- Patrick always takes Syracuse, and I always take Carthage. While Carthage won the real battle in 405 BC, I've only seen them win the scenario twice (which explains why Patrick likes to take Syracuse). This time was no exception.

3. Dennis came over for dinner last Friday, and we played a game of Long Shot. Dennis guided Six Gun to a win and collected $290 for the victory. Andrew bought Last Chance, who came in second, giving Andrew $200. My favorite horse Wonder Bred and I both came in third with $190. Patrick finished with $165.

4. I downloaded the iPhone app for GMT's Battleline. I've only had the chance to play it once, but it's a nice implementation. The game is somewhat similar to another Reiner Knizia game, Lost Cities, but (at least at this point) I like Battleline more.

Gotta Support the Geek

Back in January of 2004, I was hunting around on the Internet for some rules to an out-of-print game. At that time my favorite gaming web site was Web-Grognard -- a (still-existing) site devoted to wargames. But the game I was looking for wasn't a wargame, so I turned to Google.

My Google search turned up a link to an incredible site called BoardGameGeek. Virtually every game I had ever heard of had a page at the site, with each page having photos, reviews, FAQs and links. It was (and still is) the definitive site for gamers. The great thing was that all of the content was community-driven. Unlike most gaming sites at the time, it wasn't just one person's reviews -- anyone wanting to post a review or photo could post one.

BoardGameGeek was four years old when I found it; it's celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It continues to be my go-to site for learning about new games and getting support for the games I own and play. It's one of the first sites I check into every morning, and I'd be hard-pressed to name a site that gives me more value on a day-to-day basis. To make things even better, about a year ago, the site expanded to include role-playing games, and this summer it added video games.

Once a year, the site's founder, Scott Alden, has a fundraising drive. I'm sort of ashamed that I've never dontaed before today, since I get more out of the site than a lot of other non-profits that I donate to every year. So I decided that it was time to hit the PayPal button and make the $15 donation to become an official supporter. As of now, after less than a week, the drive is already over 2,000 on its goal to have 3,000 supporters.

Anyone who's never visited the site should check it out. If you're a gamer, I'll bet that a year from now, you'll be clicking the "donate" button.

All the news that's fit to "print"

A few odds and ends to report:

1. With the World Cup announcements, Patrick and I were in the mood for some World Cup soccer. So, we pulled out the World Cup Card Game last week. As much as it pained me, I managed to lead France to a victory over Patrick's Brazil in the finals. England topped Italy in the 3rd place game.

2. The night after Thanksgiving, Dennis made it to Mom's house for dinner. And, now that Patrick's golf and soccer seasons are over, we were able to play a game of Long Shot. Dennis bought Slow Jenn, who won the race and gave Dennis the victory with $180. Andrew purchased Six Gun, who came in second -- as did Andrew, with $170. Last Chance finished third, giving Patrick a total of $115, and I came in last with $100.

3. I continue to play a number of games online at GamesByEmail. I'm 0-4 in History of the World games, but I'm winning one of the two that I'm playing now. With Epoch V almost over, I'm 15 points ahead of Tom (who has won more than his fair share of these games). I managed to win the one game of Risk we played -- defeating Al, Jeff and Drew. I (playing the UK)also teamed up with Steve (playing the Soviets) and Tom (playing the US) to win a game of Axis and Allies against Al (playing Japan) and Drew (playing Germany).

4. Labyrinth (which I pre-ordered back in February) arrived last week. GMT had a mixup on my credit card, so I didn't get it when everyone else did in early November. But, as usual, the office folks were apologetic and kind, and got it to me two days later. I've skimmed the rules, and I'm eager to give it a shot.

5. Speaking of which, it took a lot of willpower not to order GMT's new game Commands and Colors: Napoleonics. It's Richard Borg's new game using the Commands and Colors system that started with his game Battlecry in 2000. I have to admit that I hated Battlecry the first time I played it with Al, but I enjoyed subsequent games of Battelcry, as well as Memoir '44 and Commands and Colors: Ancients. What stopped me was thinking about the fact that I haven't played any of these games in over a year. So, I pulled out the Commands and Colors: Ancients rulebook last night; Patrick and I plan to play today.

6. Al (taking England and the Protestants), Andrew (taking the French and the Ottomans) and I (taking the Hapsburgs and the Papacy) played three rounds of Here I Stand using Wargameroom the night before Thanksgiving. It only took about two hours -- including the time we spent working out the computer kinks. Compare that to the six hours it normally takes six of us playing in person. The Ottomans were unstoppable, and Vienna fell in the second turn.

7. Finally, there will be a few games under the tree on Christmas, but I need to keep those a secret.

History of the World by email

Avalon Hill's History of the World has been one of my favorite games since I first played it in 2001. The game traces the great empires of history from the Sumerians in 3000 BC to the Germans in 1914 AD. The game was first published by Ragnar Brothers in 1991. It was re-published by Gibsons Games in 1993 and then Avalon Hill in 1993. My version was published by Avalon Hill in 2001 after the company was purchased by Hasbro. Unlike the previous versions, that featured cardboard counters, my version has hundreds of colored plastic figures shaped like Egyptians, Romans and other historic soldiers.

The game lasts seven turns (epochs). Each turn, each player is dealt an empire that he or she manages during that epoch. The empires don't battle back-and-forth. Instead one empire completely finishes its turn before the next empire makes its moves. Each empire has a starting land, and then can attack into neighboring lands using a number of "armies" representing the strength of the empire during that time period -- ranging from five (such as the Khmers) to twenty (for the Romans). At the end of the empire's turn, the player receives points for lands controlled by the player (including the current empire and those of previous empires controlled by the player).

During the past month, I've been playing History of the World online at GamesByEmail. The first game was won by Tom Stafford with 193 points. Also playing were Steve Stafford, Mike, Andrew and Jeff. I came in fifth with 157 points. We've started a re-match, and I'm tied for first (but am likely to drop to second after Steve takes his turn). I also started a game with Al and four folks from BoardGameGeek. One of the players is in France and another is in Macedonia. I'm currently in fifth in that game. I'd heartily recommend the site to anyone interested in playing a game online. In addition to several traditional boardgames, such as chess, it hosts versions of Axis and Allies, Risk and Diplomacy.

Long Time Gone

New computers, busy at work ... just lots of stuff going on. While I've been playing games at a pretty good clip, I haven't had much of a chance to post.

The biggest news of the last month and a half was the stack of games that Al and I were able to pick up on July 22nd. As you may recall, I picked up a pile of Advanced Squad Leader modules from a woman on Craigslist back in March. At the time, the woman had about two dozen additional games that I passed on. However, in July, she contacted me about buying the remaining games for $300. I suggested $250 and split the cost with Al.

The photo shows the stack of games the night that Al picked them up. He also created a Geeklist to catalog them. I'm doubtful that even half of them will ever get played, but they're a great addition to our gaming library.

Twilight Struggle

The boys and I played a number of games this weekend, including The World Cup Card Game 2010 and EcoFluxx. In addition, Andrew and I played Twilight Struggle this afternoon at Wargameroom.

Twilight Struggle -- which simulates the Cold War -- is one of the more innovative game designs of the last few years. (It was published in 2005.) It starts with the card-driven mechanic that Mark Herman pioneered with We The People in 1994, but adds area-control-style mechanics popular in many Euro games.

Wargameroom is a web site with online versions of several card-driven games, including Twilight Struggle. The programs enforce all rules, which makes play move much faster than on a board, or in other online versions where players must carefully verify that their moves (and their opponents' moves) are legal. The programs are free to use (although users are encouraged to make a donation to the developer to offset his costs).

I ended up winning the game today, when Andrew accidently kept a scoring card at the end of a turn (which results in an automatic loss). It was an unfortunate way to lose, but there was no way to redo the turn, and we didn't have time to restart the game. We'll definitely try it again soon. In fact, since the game is played online, we hope to play a game some evening this week (while Andrew is at his mom's house).

Lots of Gaming

No ... this stack of games isn't mine, but it would describe my gaming the last few days.

First up, The World Cup Card Game: The boys are back in town (but not the ones that "been hangin' down at Dino's"), so we've been playing more World Cup action. On Wednesday afternoon my Ghana beat Patrick's Paraguay in the final. Friday afternoon I made an illegal card play to push Patrick's Cameroon over Andrew's Brazil. (In best FIFA tradition, I didn't notice the foul at the time, and we won't be reviewing it.) Finally, Friday night, we taught Teresa to play, and her USA defeated my Mexico in the finals. I'm glad that we're still enjoying the game even though the 2010 World Cup is over. We still want to show the game to Dennis, but I'm afraid that it may go onto the shelf for good in another week. I am looking at the World Cup board game from the same publisher, as it would allow us to play any world cup from 1930 to 2006. The only sticking point is the time requirement -- it appears to be a two- or three-hour game.

While the boys were travelling last week, they remembered how much fun we had playing Naval Battles (published by Phalanx Games) during our trip to Washington, DC last summer. So, Patrick and I played two games on Friday. In the first, my Japanese fleet staged a major comeback to defeat his US fleet. In the second, his German fleet wiped out my British fleet without working up much of a sweat. It's a really fun, fast-paced game, and I'm glad that we pulled it out.

Finally, since my tennis elbow is still acting up, we couldn't play Wii last night. So we played five quick games of EcoFluxx before heading to bed. As is always the case with Looney Labs games, they're best played late at night, since the fun is in the playing, not the strategizing. Patrick and I each won two, with Andrew winning one. We laughed a lot and didn't want to quit. But it was 11 PM, and we all needed to get to bed. In total, we played nine games yesterday.

Wall Street Journal Validation

A July 2nd article in the Wall Street Journal by Weekly Standard writer Jonathan Last discusses war-strategy games. Mr. Last summarizes the history of board and computer war-strategy games (such as Sid Meier's Civilization series) and a number of Avalon Hill classics (such as Diplomacy).

The article is interesting enough, and provides a nice history of these games for the casual observor. But what I find interesting is my reaction: I immediately forwarded the article to the gaming group (including Al, Steve and Steven). Given that there isn't a thing in the article that these folks didn't know already, I asked myself "why?" And the answer I came up with is sort of interesting.

But first, let me note that this reaction isn't that unusual. Within hours, a BoardGameGeek user posted a forum message alerting other gamers to the article. Similar articles in the past have also generated a quick posting at the Geek.

I think that these types of articles provide a kind of validation to embarrassed gamers. Let's face it: non-mass-market board gamers are a relatively small group. While the Internet and places like BoardGameGeek make us feel more "plugged in" and less like social outcasts than 20 years ago, we're still a little out of the mainstream. How many people at work play golf? How many watch football? How many belong to a book group? How many play poker? Now, how many play boardgames that aren't available at Target or Wal-Mart? Most of us don't even know how to describe our hobby. "My friends and I played games on Saturday.... No not really like Monopoly or Life ... more 'adult.' .... No, not *that* kind of 'adult.' ... Oh never mind."

Now, reduce the number of people in your hobby even further by being a wargamer. Most coworkers can understand a colleague who plays a game like Settlers or Puerto Rico as being an eccentric gamer -- similar to people who play competitive Bridge or Scrabble. But I rarely discuss my wargaming hobby with my workplace friends. (The one exception would be describing Kingmaker to a coworker who asked where I learned how to navigate office politics.)

Articles like Mr. Last's confirm that we're not completely relegated to gaming in our basements and weird geek-conventions. We're right there in the mainstream (or at least on page W9 of the Friday Journal). He even used the term "grognard" in the article.

I wasn't forwarding the article to Al to let him know that Henry Kissinger played Diplomacy -- Al already knew that. I was sharing some validation of our hobby -- and us.

Mid-Year Report

The year is half over, so I thought I'd look back on my most-played games at this point of 2010.

As I looked at the totals, I couldn't miss an obvious conclusion. The year 2010 is the year that I found Looney Labs games. While the games are not universally loved by gamers (largely because of their chaotic nature), they are fun and quick-playing.

In some ways their quick play makes for an unfair comparison. I'll obviously get more plays out of a Looney Labs game that take 15 minutes to play than a GMT or Fantasy Flight game that takes seven hours. Because of this I have to give a special recognition to GMT's Here I Stand, which I've only played once this year (plus once in December 2009). At this point it would win the 2010 best "new-to-me" game.

With that caveat, here's the list (through June 30th).

1. EcoFluxx (which I've only owned for about a month, but I've played 11 times)
2. Chrononauts (another Looney Labs game, which I've played 9 times)
2. Farkel (a traditional dice game that I've also played 9 times)
4. Early American Chrononauts (Looney Labs' retheming of Chronauts, which I've played 8 times)
4. Hive (which I've also played 8 times, although about half of these were on the iPhone app)
6. Killer Bunnies REMIX (which was the Friday night game of choice for much of the winter and was played 6 times)
6. Long Shot (which is moving up fast, with 6 plays, having been the Friday night choice for the last couple of months)
8. Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age (which I don't even own a physical copy of, but I've played 4 time as an iPhone app)
9. Descent: Journeys in the Dark (a fun dungeon crawl that I've played 3 times, and I think will be played a lot more this year)
9. Scrabble Slam (which I played 3 times with Gillian's family in Jamaica)
9. World Cup Card Game 2010 (which is lots of fun, but probably will be stuck with 3 plays at the end of the year, since the World Cup is almost over)

Long Shot

Long Shot by Z-Man Games has become our regular Friday night game this summer, and tonight was no exception. Andrew is back home from Springfield, but he skipped the game to mow Mom's lawn. Non also sat out the game, since she was feeling a little tired.

One of Mom's two horses, Eight is Enough, finished second. She combined his purse with a pile of cash (and one well-placed bet) to win the game with $230. My horse, Wonder Bred, won the race, but I finished second with $150. Gillian's horse didn't show, but she finished third with $135. One of Patrick's horses, Six Gun, finished third, and Patrick finished with $115. Teresa finished with $110.

World Cup ... Again

A third game this afternoon of The World Cup Card Game. This time Andrew led Germany to a PK victory over the US. My Netherlands squad beat the Ivory Coast in the consolation game.

World Cup Rematch

With Andrew back in town, the boys and I tried out a three-player game of The World Cup Card Game. Andrew piloted Spain to the Cup, with a 4-3 final against France. (Germany beat England 4-1 in the Round of 16 in our card game, just as they did in today's actual game.) Andrew's Cameroon lost to Patrick's Algeria in the consolation game.

There's enough luck in the game to cause the occaissional upset and keep it interesting. But the better teams do have a slight advantage under the game's mechanics. Each team's card has a small number of icons that affect the game play to reflect their relative rankings. (Note that this is very primitive -- the game is not at all in the vein of a typical Strat-o-Matic or APBA game.)

Each player controls multiple teams, meaning that you have to make choices regarding which teams to "support" with the limited number of stronger cards. I may want to play my best cards to help the US win its match, but if I also control Germany, I may want to instead play the best cards for Germany -- figuring that they have a better chance of going all the way to the finals. It's a nifty mechanic that gives the better teams an advantage beyond what's printed on their cards.

The game is very enjoyable, but it is tied to its theme. Thus, while it's a blast to play this summer during the World Cup, I can't imagine pulling it out much once the World Cup is over (sort of the same way that Christmas music just "feels wrong" once the holidays have passed). The game's rules could certainly be applied to the Premiere League, for instance. And I'm hopeful that the game's creater, Shaun Derrick, will do this (once he's recovered from today's game).

Wonder Bred Wins by a Nose

Friday night at Mom's meant another round of Long Shot by Z-Man Games. Andrew is still at the Missouri Innovation Academy in Springfield (Missouri), and Non sat out, but the rest of us had one of the closest races ever.

Patrick continued with his strategy of only placing bets -- without ever buying a horse. It worked this time, as he won the game with $240. Dennis bought the race winner, Wonder Bred, and finished with $215. Gillian and Mom tied for third with $190. Gillian owned the second-place horse, Sure Lee, but Patrick had more money bet on the horse, which is why he was able to win. Mom owned the third-place horse, Rex in Effect. I finished with a mere $70, and Teresa finished with only $50.

In the seven weeks since I bought Long Shot, we've played it five times at Mom's. (We took one week off and played The Adventurers once.) I think it qualifies as a success.

World Cup Action

The 2010 World Cup is in full swing, and I'm loving every minute of it. I like international soccer a lot more than US Major League Soccer, and this year's World Cup seems to be full of drama. It's also nice because both boys are really into soccer this year. We spent much of the spring playing FIFA 2010 World Cup for the Wii.

A few weeks ago, I ran across a description of The World Cup Card Game from a British Company, Games for the World, at BoardGameGeek. The game's designer, Shaun Derrick, created a World Cup boardgame in 2006, that allows gamers to recreate the 2006 World Cup. (Gamers can also buy expansion packs that can be used for virtually every World Cup from the 20th century.) This year he adapted the game to a simpler card version for the 2010 World Cup. The game won the Best Cardgame award at the 2010 UK Games Expo.

The game isn't available (directly) in the States, but I was able to order it from the publisher using Paypal. I ordered the game on June 12, 2010 and the Royal Mail was able to get it to me on the 21st. The game cost $13.35 (including shipping, after conversion from pound sterling).

Patrick and I were able to give it a try today. The US won the Cup, defeating Germany in the final. (Italy and Spain took third and fourth.) The scores were completely realistic -- with most games finishing 0-0 or 1-0, with the occaissional 2-1 or 3-2 game. The biggest blowout was Ghana defeating Australia 4-0 in group play.

I'll write a more thorough review once I've had the opportunity to play it a few more times, but our initial impression was very positive. The game consists of 64 cards -- one for each World Cup team, plus 32 action cards. The photo (taken by Nic Chilton) gives some idea of what the cards look like.

More Long Shot

More of Z-Man Game's Long Shot last night. Andrew is still at the Missouri Innovation Academy in Springfield (Missouri), and Teresa had to leave early, so we were short-handed.

Gillian bought the horse Eight is Enough, and the horse ended up winning by about eight spaces. This, combined with some well-placed bets, gave Gillian the win with $310. Patrick tried out his new strategy of not buying any horses, but using all of his money for bets. He had $25 on Eight is Enough, but that wasn't enough, as he finished second with $265. Mom had the second-place horse, Six Gun, and finished with $205. Non had the third-place horse, Slow Jenn, and finished with $200. I was far behind with $110.

Everyone but me finished with more money than last time, and most folks feel that we're understanding the game better than before. Dennis is supposed to get off of work early next Friday, and he has requested that we play Long Shot.

Eco Fluxx

Patrick and I played five games of Eco Fluxx this weekend. The Fluxx series is published by Looney Labs, and all of the games have the same basic mechanics. (I ordered the game from Amazon on May 19th, for $15.99.)

The game starts with two required actions on each player's turn: (1) draw a card, (2) play a card. Players try to collect (and play in front of them) cards called "keepers." The names of the keepers vary depending upon the particular Fluxx game. For example, in Eco Fluxx, the keepers are items from nature (such as plants and animals); in Family Fluxx, the keepers are things like cake and presents. (Other Fluxx games include Martian Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx.)

In addition to keepers, much of the deck is composed of "goal" cards. These cards give the combination of keepers that a player must have in order to win. For example, in Eco Fluxx, a player may win if he or she has the keepers bats and caves. Another goal allows a player to win if he has fish and any player has worms. Every time a goal card is played, it replaces the previously-played goal card. Thus the victory condition may change 20 or 30 times during a game.

Other cards change the rules mid-game. For example, a player may play a "new rule" card that allows players to draw four cards each turn. Later, a player may play a card that changes the draw to three cards (and the draw-four-each-turn card is placed into the discard pile). Finally, "action cards" add more chaos -- allowing players, for example, to steal a card.

Mya (aka EmeraldYam) has posted a Playmobil Legions Review of the original Fluxx game at Geekdo. The comments below her review will give you some idea of the mixed emotions that Fluxx generates. The uncertainty and randomness don't appeal to everyone. Patrick and I enjoyed it.

I had never heard of Fluxx until I listened (a couple of months ago) to Episode #31 of Game On! with Cody and John. Since then, two Looney Labs games (Fluxx and Chrononauts) are our most-played games of the year.

Friday Night at the Races

Dennis came to Mom's for dinner tonight, and he had requested that we play the horse-racing game Long Shot, by Z-Man Games. Just like last time, Dennis bought horse #4, Slow Jenn, and led her to victory. But he didn't end up having enough money bet on her, so he came in second in the money with $155. Mom owned horse #6, who came in second. In addition to the purse for coming in second, Mom had $20 on the horse, paying 5-1 to place -- she ended up winning the game with $250. Horse #7 finished third, and so did Patrick, with $130. I finished with $65, and Non finished with $40.

Trivia Answer

The answer (of course) is that Haney quit his job to spend a year on the Costa del Sol (with a stack of reference books) writing questions for Trivial Pursuit. According to the Wikipedia entry, the game was released in 1982 and sold over 20 million copies in 1984. The game's rights were purchased by Hasbro in 2008 for $80 million.

I remember that it seemed as though everyone I knew received the game for Christmas in 1983. I never really enjoyed it that much -- although I did appreciate all of the various incarnations and knockoffs. I also remember creating a set of questions one week in the mid-1980s for a game night at my mom's house -- the categories were all about our gang of friends.

Trivia Question

Chris Haney passed away last Monday at age 59. Haney was born and raised in Canada and was a photo editor at the Montreal Gazette until he quit in 1980 to pursue a business idea. What was the idea?

The Adventurers!

We celebrated Patrick's birthday tonight. Number one on his wishlist (other than a Thierry Henry jersey) was a 2009 game by Alderic Entertainment Group (AEG) -- The Adventurers. Each player in the game represents an Indiana-Jones-like explorer making his or her way through a Mayan Temple. The adventurer's goal is to gather as much treasure as possible, while avoiding traps such as rolling boulders, lava pits and rickety bridges. The traps are built with 3-D plastic pieces -- similar to the 1963 Ideal game Mouse Trap (although not as elaborate).

The game was nominated for The Dice Tower's awards for Best Family Game, Most Innovative Game and Best Production Values. Tom and Melody Vassel also have a video review at YouTube.

Teresa was able to pick a lock (on her second try) to get a 9-treasure-point card near the exit, and that was the difference, as she ended up winning with 19 points. Gillian came in second with 15 points, I had 10, Patrick had 7. Andrew had 24 points, but was run over by the giant boulder before he could reach the exit. At one point I made the mistake of ending my turn on the rickety bridge. Gillian decided to try to cross the bridge at the same time, and only some lucky rolling prevented our combined weights from causing the bridge to collapse.

Dennis, Non and Mom sat out, but everyone who played it liked it. Dennis requested that we play Longshot next Friday night.

San Juan Sunday

Gillian and I pulled out San Juan by Rio Grande for a Sunday-night game. San Juan (published in 2004) is a card adaptation of another Rio Grande game, Puerto Rico, which was published in 2002 and is the top-ranked game at BoardGameGeek. I bought San Juan in February 2007 (at Amazon, for $28.60). Gillian and I were taking a cruise in March, and I wanted to get a quick, easy and portable game that we could play in the airport, on the plane and/or on the ship.

The game is all of those things and is often recommended as a "girlfriend" game -- having a minimal amount of conflict. In fact it's sometimes criticized as being multiplayer solitaire. Unfortunately, while that makes it a good girlfriend game (and Gillian considers it one of her favorites), I find it a little boring. We've only played it about a half dozen times since the cruise (mostly with just the two of us, but once with Al and Linda). This was the first time we'd played it since last August.

The rules are online, for anyone who wants to check it out. There's also a free online Java version that allows you to play against up to three AI (computer) opponents.

Certain card combinations can generate big victory points in San Juan, and one of my favorites is to combine the Smithy, that reduces the building cost of production buildings, with the Guild Hall, that gives extra victory points for each production building. That's the combo that I was able to build tonight, giving me 12 bonus points and a total of 34. Gillian's favorite strategy is to build the Chapel, which can also produce a number of bonus points. She wasn't able to get it built in time, however, so she finished with 25 points.

Long(er) Shot

We gave Z-Man Game's Long Shot another try Friday night. In addition to the boys and Teresa, Gillian was back home, and Dennis made a surprise appearance.

Dennis won with $270. He bought the winning horse, bet $20 on it and held onto a pile of cash. Andrew was a close second (with $240), followed by Teresa ($175), Gillian ($160) and Patrick ($130). Mom and Non decided to sit out, and I was the banker.

The boys and Tersa still enjoy it, and Dennis seemed to have a good time too. Gillian said that it was "cute." I haven't actually played it since the first go-around, but I can see why it's popular as a party game. It's easy to learn and fairly quick-moving.

Second Dominion

Patrick requested that we play Dominion again today, so we played a two-player game. Patrick won 33-21.

Dominion is a deck-building game -- players start with ten cards that are mostly treasure cards. The treasure cards can be played to purchase more treasure cards, victory point cards and action cards. Action cards allow players to draw extra cards, spend extra money or "attack" the other players. To add to the game's replayability, the selection of available action cards is determined randomly each game.

The game moves quickly and has a good amount of replayability. I can see why it's popular. My only criticism is that the theme is mostly meaningless.

First Try of Dominion

Patrick wanted to try out Dominion this afternoon. I had ordered it on May 4th when Amazon put it on sale for $36.68. The game was published by Rio Grande Games in 2008 and has already become extremely popular -- boasting three full expansions with another on the way.

The rules are fairly simple, and, once again, Mya's excellent (and funny) Playmobile Legions Review at BoardGameGeek is better than anything I could supply. The game is a little similar to another Rio Grande game that Gillian likes, San Juan. I think San Juan is OK, but I don't really enjoy it that much -- especially with just two people. I'm hoping that Gillian will like Dominion.

I won today's game with 39 points. Andrew finished second with 33, and Patrick had 32. All of us had a good time, and both boys want to play it again.

Descent: Into the Dark

Al and Steven came over last night for a full four-heroes game of Descent. Al took Byrah the Falconer, Steven took Grey Ker, Andrew took Landrec the Wise, Patrick took Mordrog, and I played the Overlord. They took on the first quest -- Into the Dark -- plowing through the dungeon without much trouble. Andrew's hero (who has very powerful magic attacks, but was short on armor) died once, and Patrick barely survived being surrounded once by beastmen and skeletons. But the group came through just fine -- killing the master giant at the end of the quest without much danger.

The consensus on BoardGameGeek is that the heroes should win most of the quests in the basic set. And that's fine with me, as I view Descent more as a cooperative roleplaying game than a test of wits. I also understand why the rules have the heroes lose all of their weapons and armor between quests. The heroes were so powerful by the end of the quest that they were killing a roomful of five monsters before the monsters knew what hit them.

We hope to continue playing throughout the summer, and Patrick plans to paint the figures once school lets out.

Second Try at Long Shot

Long Shot got its second test tonight -- the first time with the Friday night crowd of Andrew, Patrick, Mom, Non and Teresa. Patrick ended up winning with $280, followed by Mom ($200), Teresa ($185), Non ($165) and Andrew ($75). (I was the banker.)

The reviews were generally positive. Teresa and Mom both said that it took awhile to get used to the idea of playing cards that helped a horse that you've bet on -- even if you don't own the horse. We'll probably give it another try next Friday.

Give Me Liberty

Al came over last night to celebrate my birthday with a little wargaming. He brought along Liberty by Columbia Games, and we were able to play the first three turns/years.

Liberty was published in 2003, and simulates the American War of Independence. It's in Columbia's block series -- a collection of wargames that use wooden blocks rather than counters. The blocks are set on-end, so that players can't see the strength of opposing units until the battle begins. Similar games from Columbia include Hammer of the Scots (Wars of Scottish Independence), Richard III (The Wars of the Roses), Crusader Rex (The 3rd Crusade), Pacific Victory (WWII Pacific Theater) and others. The games are known for being quick-moving, and Columbia makes an effort to keep the rulebooks at eight pages (which is remarkably short for a wargame). (The latest episode of the wargame podcast The Noise Before Defeat summarizes the history of block games.)

Al and I had played Richard III last fall, so we were able to jump into the rules fairly quickly. As is our tradition when playing Revolutionary War games, I took the British and Al took the Americans. (I'll save the details for a future posting, but, over the years, our group has fallen into a routine for most historical board games -- with each of us taking the same country for a given time period regardless of the game.) I managed to take Charleston (South Carolina) in 1775 without much of a fight as both sides spent most of the year supplying. In 1776 I was able to take Fort Ticonderoga and repulse a large assault on Boston by Washington. In 1777, Washington was able to take Boston and then retake Fort Ticonderoga. The British army retreating from Boston was able to link up with reinforcements to take Philadelphia and then move on to New York. Meanwhile smaller British forces in the South were able to take Wilmington and Savannah. At this point we decided to call it a night. The British were in good shape in the South and Mid-Atlantic, but most of Canada was wide-open for an American assault. Furthermore, the French were getting ready to arrive (supply your own joke), so things were likely to start becomming more difficult.

Since I enjoyed Richard III and Crusader Rex, I wasn't surprised that Liberty was good. My current plan is to put together a posting on Independence Day summarizing the various Revolutionary War games that I've played. For now, I'd say that Liberty is one of the two that I'd recommend. As far as the game's mechanics, I'd say that it's not all that different than the other block games. Any wargamer who hasn't yet tried out a block game should definitely pick one up. I think that they're all fairly similar, so I'd recommend choosing the one with your prefered time period. I normally wouldn't recommend Liberty (or any of the block games) to non-wargamers. However, the March 1, 2010 episode of the gaming podcast The Spiel recommends three wargames that non-wargamers should try -- including Hammer of the Scots. Any non-wargamer considering this advice could probably substitute Liberty -- especially if they find the time period more familiar or interesting.

Al and I hope to play it again soon. Unfortunately, there are about 25 games in that category. I don't think this one would work very well with Cyberboard, so PBeM isn't really an option. There is an online version of Hammer of the Scots, so maybe we can give that a try.

Long Shot

The boys and I had a chance to try out Z-Man Games' Long Shot this afternoon. I ordered it back on May 6th (from Amazon, for $39.95). Long Shot was listed on several folks' top-10 lists for 2009. It's highly rated as a party game.

The game is built around a horserace theme. Players roll dice on their turn to determine which horses move (and how far). Players also draw and play cards that can cause horses to move forward or back on the track. But Long Shot is far more than a roll-and-move game. The object of the game is to have the most money when the race ends. Players start with $25 and can use the money to buy horses or bet on horses (regardless of who owns them). The buying and betting occurs throughout the race, so as a horse's track position changes, it affects the betting and the players' decisions regarding card play. At the end of race, the owners of the top-three horses earn $100, $75 and $50 (respectively) and the horses pay off to the players who placed bets on them.

Andrew won our game with $425. I finished second with $365, and Patrick had $245. All three of us enjoyed the game, and I think it will be even better with more people.

The game represents my latest effort to find a "Friday night" game. The problem is that no one is in the mood for anything complicated on Friday night. Plus, Teresa and Gillian dislike games with even a moderate "take that" element (such as Uno and Killer Bunnies). Farkle was working well, but I was getting a little burned out. While there is a good amount of interaction in Long Shot, there isn't much negative interaction. Also, Teresa likes horse racing, so I'm hoping the theme will appeal to her.

Descending Farther

Patrick and I were alone for gaming Friday night, and he wanted to give Descent another try. We had decided that we weren't familiar enough with the rules to have him control two heroes, so he only took one. The game's rules scale the strength of the monsters (and the Overlord's available cards) to the number of heroes, so in theory being the only hero shouldn't prevent you from winning. As it turned out, though, Patrick gave up before leaving the dungeon's second room.

The problem was that I was able to spawn monsters as fast as Patrick could kill them. In retrospect, I think that Patrick probably should have ignored the "speed bump" monsters and should have kept moving (literally) towards the "boss" monster. The rules are set up so that the heroes automatically win when they kill the boss monster -- thus Patrick was really just distracting himself from the real goal.

I've got to find a storage solution for this game. As is typical for a Fantasy Flight production, it has dozens of tokens and plastic minis. (The photo above, posted to BoardGameGeek by Johannes Albani, gives you some idea of the number of pieces.) The game frequently slowed down while I searched for a particular figure or token.

Patrick is interested in painting the minis this summer. They come in plain plastic, but many people use model paint to spruce them up.

Early American Chrononauts

Patrick has won all four of our games of Early American Chrononauts (since I received it last week). We played two games last Friday and two games yesterday.

We've both enjoyed playing the original Chrononauts since I bought it last month. So far we both enjoy the Early American version more. I'm not sure if it's the game itself, the fact that we're understanding it better, or the fact that we're playing it with only two people.

Part of the reason I ordered it was to combine it with the original version for UberChrononauts. We haven't done that yet, but we're looking forward to trying that out.

Another reason Patrick is enjoying it is that he's currently studying many of the events in his 7th-grade history class. In the last few weeks they've discussed Andrew Jackson, the Trail of Tears and the Battle of the Alamo. All three are in the Early American Chrononauts timeline.

Sunday Descent

The boys and I finally had a chance to try out Descent yesterday. I had ordered the game back in March. We were all excited about trying it, but didn't really have a chance until yesterday. We had hoped to try it on Saturday with Al and Drew, but once Steven and Jeff were available, we decided to switch to another Fantasy Flight event game, Twilight Imperium.

Descent is a dungeon crawl game with 3D pieces that clearly owes a lot to Milton Bradley's 1989 classic, HeroQuest. Up to four players take the role of heroes, while another player controls the dungeon's monsters. I had picked up Heroquest in a trade in the fall of 2007 (in exchange for the WWI plane combat game Sopwith). The boys and I tried HeroQuest a few times and enjoyed it, but the copy I traded for was missing a few pieces. Descent also has more variety in terms of heroes, monsters and quests.

We had a good time playing yesterday. The game bogged down a little bit, as each of the boys was trying to control two heroes. This was probably a bad decision since we were still learning the rules. I think we will definitely enjoy the game once we're up to speed on the rules.

Space ... The Final Frontier

The gang got together for some gaming yesterday. We had originally discussed attending The Geekway to the West gaming convention, here in St. Louis, but our schedules were a little full. We decided to save the money and check out the game room at Al's new place.

Since we had a full day, we decided to try out Twilight Imperium (3rd Edition) by Fantasy Flight Games. TI3 has become one of our favorite "event games" since Al bought it a couple of years ago. Al, Steven, Drew, Andrew, Jeff and Patrick played. (I helped Patrick out, since it was his first game, and I also served as "Rulebook Guy.")

The game is set in space. Each player represents a race of beings that builds ships, expands, takes over more planets, researches techonology and expands some more. It combines the stock mechanics of most "civilization" games, such as a technology tree and lots of plastic pieces representing lots of different types of units. It also has a few Euro elements, such as trading and strategy cards (that are similar to the role cards that are in various Euros).

The game is a lot of fun, but its downside is the time it takes to play. We started setting up at 4 PM, took our first turns about 4:45 PM, took a 45-minute dinner break about 7 PM and finally quit about 12:30 the following morning. The winner is the first to reach ten victory points, and we had a three-way tie for six when we called it. We've only finished one game -- ever -- and that took about twelve hours. We might be a little slow. (After all, our group does have the person who invented "fake thinking.") But I can't imagine a group of five or six finishing this game in less than eight hours. I found a fun video on YouTube that is a a stop-motion video of a three-player game.

Back to the Future

I taught Gillian how to play Chrononauts on Sunday night. The game had some good back-and-forth, and it didn't take long for Gillian to get the hang of it. I ended up winning in the end. It will probably take a few more tries before Gillian is ready to give it a thumbs-up or -down.

Patrick and I split two games Wednesday afternoon. The "feel" of the game was much less chaotic than in the past. I'm not really sure if we're getting better, or if two-player games are more structured.

I ordered the Early American Chrononauts from Amazon on Tuesday for $20. It's a stand-alone game using an American timeline running from 1717 to 1916. But my real interest is in combininig the two sets for UberChrononauts.

We'll probably give Chrononauts another try Friday night at Mom's.

More time travels

Patrick and I split two games of Chrononauts today. I'm still liking the game a lot. It's a good sign when you play a game four times in one day, and then want to play it again 48 hours later.

I'm keeping an eye on the price of Early American Chrononauts at Amazon. It's currently $20 (including shipping). If it drops a few dollars I'll order it. I think that doubling the timeline will reduce the feeling that "any card I play will help someone else more than me."

Playing with time

I'm continuing to listen to the old episodes of Game On! with Cody and John. Last week I listened to Episode #31, featuring an interview with Andrew Looney -- the cofounder of the game company Looney Labs. The interview discussed several games, but I was especially intrigued by Chrononauts. I had recently received a $25 Amazon certificate (from a publisher), and the game was on sale at Amazon for $18.40, so I ordered it. It arrived today, and Patrick, Andrew and I played four games.

The game was originally published in 2000, but the edition I bought is from 2009. It starts with a set of 32 cards representing important world events laid out in chronological order -- starting with the Lincoln Assassination (in 1865) and ending with the Columbine High School Massacre (in 1999). Players represent time travellers attempting to change the timeline. Each player randomly draws a card describing the two events that must be changed and the one that must be preserved in order to set the timeline so they can return home. For example, one card (for a time traveller named Yuri) requires the player to (1) change history so that a cosmonaut (not an American astronaut) is the first to orbit the moon in 1969, (2) change history so that Communism re-invents itself in 1991, rather than having the Berline Wall fall and (3) make sure that the Oklahoma City Bombing continues to occur in 1995.

How is this accomplished? Players draw and play cards, some of which include the ability to "flip" certain events. For example, some cards allow a player to prevent or complete an assasination. Yuri can use these cards to change history so that Kennedy is only wounded or Reagan is killed. These events then "ripple" throughout the timeline, as indicated on the cards. Saving Kennedy will slow the Apollo Program enough to prevent the Apollo landing in 1969. It will also prevent RFK and MLK from being killed. The Apollo landing can also be sidetracked by playing a sabatoge card to explode Sputnik. Of course that will ripple as well, in different ways.

Players can also win the game by collecting a list (that differs from player-to-player) of particular artifacts from the past and future ... everything from a live dinosaur to a Beatles reunion album (which will only exist if someone stops John Lennon from being killed). Looney Labs has placed the rules online, for those curious about more details.

We had a good time with the game. Both boys liked it. (Andrew and Patrick each won twice.) Despite the serious nature of some of the cards, the game shows a lot of humor. Several cards have blurbs on them that play upon the theme. For example, the "John Lennon Nearly Killed" card says that a "mysterious hero intervenes in street attack on rock star, then disappears into Central Park." My favorite is the "Titanic Avoids Iceberg" card's blurb -- "We almost hit that." The main flaw that I see in the game is that in 90% of the turns that I took today, I didn't have any cards that would move the timeline in my favor. Thus, I spent most of my time asking, "which of these plays is most likely to help someone else?" I don't know if this was bad luck, bad play or bad game design, but it knocks the game down a couple of ratings points.

Looney Labs has published a couple of expansions. Early American Chrononauts covers America from 1760-1916, and The Gore Years extends the timeline to 2008.