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.

Ican Gold Discovered

Amazon marked Incan Gold down to $18.40 earlier this week, so I went ahead and ordered it. We were able to give it a try at Mom's tonight. Since the game works best with five or fewer, I sat out -- acting as dealer and banker. Andrew won the first game, and Gillian won the second. Also playing were Patrick, Mom and Non. Gillian liked the game, but the rest of the group had a mixed reaction.

The game is a basic "push your luck," with the setting of an Incan temple. I can't possibly describe it as well (or as entertainingly) as the Playmobile Legions review posted in February by EmeraldYam at BoardGameGeek.

Two Quick Games of Hive

Andrew had a jazz band concert last night at De Smet. Patrick and I arrived early so that Andrew could set up the drums. That left Patrick and me 45 minutes to kill, so we decided to play some Hive on the iPhone. Patrick won both games.

He's really getting very good at the game. Again, I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a quick abstract game. The app is only $1.99 at iTunes.

ASL Modules Arrive

The Advanced Squad Leader modules that I ordered last month arrived yesterday. As the lady who was selling them on Craigslist indicated, they're almost entirely unpunched. Everything seems to be complete, except that one module appears to be missing the boards. Even if the boards are missing (as I'm still holding out hope that they'll be in one of the other boxes when I carefully go through everything), it was still a bargain.

According to the historic BoardGameGeek prices (as recorded by Spielboy) at the site that I discussed awhile back, these modules (in like new condition) have mostly been selling for between $50 and $200 a piece.

Friday Night Wagering

Everyone was a little tired tonight, so we only played a quick game of Wits and Wagers at Mom's. Patrick scored big by betting seven chips on a 4-1 payoff on the fifth question; he then coasted to an easy victory. Also playing were Andrew, Mom, Non, Gillian and me.

Wits and Wagers is a good party game. The slogan is that it's a trivia game for people who don't like trivia. Each game consists of seven questions. Each question has a numeric answer. For example, one question tonight asked for the year that the electric razor was invented. Each player writes down his or her best guess, and the answers are placed (sorted from lowest to highest) on a board (as shown in the photo). In the second phase, players bet chips on the answer that they think is closest to being correct (without going over). The middle guess pays 2-1, and the odds increase as the guesses move to the extremes. Once all bets are placed, the answer is read, and the player closest to the answer receives three chips. In addition any other player betting on that answer receives his or her payoff. The player with the most chips after seven questions wins.

Mom doesn't like the game, and Non doesn't seem to enjoy it much either. But it is fast, and the rules are easy to keep track of.

Easter Gaming

Patrick and I though it would be appropriate to play Killer Bunnies on Easter, but, since that didn't appeal to Dennis, Teresa and Gillian, we agreed on Farkle instead. Gillian ended up winning with a total of 10,250. Rounding out the group was Patrick (9,400), Teresa (8,800), me (6,050), Dennis (5,850) and Andrew (5,200).

ASL Rookie Camp

Al came over yesterday afternoon for some Advanced Squad Leader. Al has been playing off-and-on for several years, so it was nice for us to play with someone who only needs to look a rule up every ten minutes, as opposed to every five minutes. As shown in the photo, Al (taking the Germans) played against Andrew (taking the Russians) in a Stalingrad scenario (S2). (The peeps in the front of the table were an early Easter snack.)

Andrew made a rookie mistake in his setup, so Al was able to break about half of the Russian forces in his first prep fire phase. The Russians were reeling for most of the ensuing two hours, and the Germans were able to take the victory point buildings. Andrew conceded after four turns.

About half-way through the game, we realized that we had all been playing an important rule incorrectly (not just yesterday, but since we started). Andrew was the first to notice that the rules didn't really say what we thought they did. After re-reading the section several times, I visited BoardGameGeek and found a thread discussing the issue.

We had a good time, and I'm looking forward to getting in on the action next time.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Cont'd)

It was also during the summer of 1987 that I started helping Steve Stafford with his Strat-o-Matic Baseball team in a league at The Epic Gallery hobby shop. Steve's team in that league was also known as the New York City Corporate Raiders. We made the playoffs, but were eliminated in the first round.

We continued the APBA baseball league during the summer of 1988. Steve Stafford had to drop out because of a lack of time, so his team was taken over by Richard Philipak. Richard re-named one of the teams the Spectres. Also, Frank dropped out half-way through the season, and his teams were taken over by Kenn Leucke and Steven Erdmann. Al's two teams made it all of the way to the World Series, and the Medflys beat the Neanderthals to win the championship.

I moved away from St. Louis in August of 1988 to start graduate school, and although we finished a draft prior to a 1989 season, the season itself was never started, and our second attempt at a table-top baseball league came to an end.

In 2003, we decided to give it another try. I had bought Strat-o-Matic back in the 1990s just to see what the game was looking like. When I received the mailing in February 2003 I talked to Al and Dennis about starting a league, and we decide to give it a try. In addition to Al's (Greenwhich Meridians), Dennis's (Montauk Fighting Rainbow Trout) and my team (the St. Louis Crusaders), we were joined by Steven (The Gallifreyan Timelords), Jeff White (Metropolis Supermen) and Rick (Dallas Diamonds). The Crusaders won the 2003 World Series (defeating the Trout) and Al won the 2004 World Series (defeating the Diamonds). Mid-way through the 2005 season, we fell behind in our games, and we decided to jump straight to a playoff round. The Diamonds ended up winning the World Series (defeating the Timelords).

I don't honestly see us ever trying another league. However, I do think that we learned a number of lessons over the years. (1) It's important that league members reconcile themselves to the fact that "owners" vary in the amount of time that they can devote to the league. Members should have honest discussions prior to starting a league about the time commitment that's expected. Gung-ho members may need to accept the fact that not everyone shares their priorities. If they prefer a league with more games and/or extensive bookkeeping, they need to either find like-minded people or be prepared to accept a lower commitment level. (2) Members should think when creating the league about how to handle team openings. Members' lives will change, and people will move, gain new family commitments or just want to quit. (3) Every game's rules has "loopholes" that can be exploited -- things that allow players to "work the system" in an unrealistic manner. League members need to have in place a solid process for resolving these issues before they arise.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

The Major League Baseball season starts this Sunday, so it seems like a good time to talk about my favorite table-top baseball games.

The first table-top baseball game that I ever played actually belonged to my brother Dennis. It was a simple game -- you would roll two dice and read the result from a chart. I remember that double-twos was a double, double-threes was a triple and double-sixes was a homerun. The chart was actually printed on the back-side of a cardboard chessboard along with a football gridiron. Dennis received it as a gift from our Aunt Alice. To this day we refer to the old game as "Aunt Alice Baseball." Dennis played several shortened seasons using the game in the 1960s (while he was in high school). When I discovered the game in the early 1970s (along with Dennis's records from his old seasons) I was impressed enough that I started to play it as well.

Sometime in the late 1970s I started to realize that Aunt Alice Baseball's stats weren't all that realistic. I also wanted a game that could reproduce individual statistics for Major League players (rather than having every player use the same chart). Over the course of several years I tried to build my own baseball game using actual Major League players' stats. I can also remember making ratings/cards for the guys in our neighborhood and playing a shortened season (with the help of Paul Stephan and Hubert Synn) that put our "team" in a league with actual major league teams. (As an aside, I'm not sure what happened to Aunt Alice Baseball; it's probably somewhere in Mom's basement.)

During the Major League Players strike of 1981, Dennis read an article in Sport magazine describing APBA baseball. We mailed away (as we had to do in the pre-Internet days) to request a brochure describing the game. APBA sent back a glossy brochure and a sample card (of George Brett), and I was hooked. We ordered the game, and I can remember spending the next two weeks waiting every day for the mailman. Dennis, his (now ex-) wife Vicki and I ended up picking teams and starting a 32-game season. The games were a lot of fun (although the record keeping was tedious). The baseball strike ended in August, and as school started up again, we stopped playing our games. Sometime that summer I introduced APBA to Rick VerMehren, who ended up finishing our season.

That same summer, Paul Stephan bought Strat-o-Matic Baseball at our local hobby store (The Epic Gallery). We played a couple of games, but I wasn't that impressed. Looking back, what bothered me the most was that Strat-o-Matic (in those days) used a deck of cards with numbers printed on them rather than a die to resolve certain plays. (At some point Strat-o-Matic replaced the deck with a twenty-sided die.)

In 1982 a group of us started an APBA baseball league (where we drafted the players). My team was the Winnipeg Wilderness; Dennis had the Penguis; my cousin Fred had the Gotham City Batmen; Al had the California Medflys and Rick had the Dallas Diamonds. Also in the league were Paul Stephan, Doug Verseman and Paul Marxkors (although I can't remember their team names). As summer wore on, several of the guys lost interest, and we didn't finish the season.

During most of the 1980s, Rick and I continued playing shortened MLB seasons each year when the cards came out (although to be honest, Rick did most of the playing and 90% of the bookkeeping).

In 1986, a number of us from the 1982 league, plus Bill Lake and a few of his family members started a league using the Commodore-64 baseball game by SSI. Although the season was fun, and it was nice having the computer keep the stats, a number of us missed rolling the dice, so we switched the league over to APBA in 1987. However, since the 1982 league, Rick and I had discovered the APBA Master Game. The Master Game was the advanced version -- taking into account lefty-righty effects, pitcher fatigue, outfielder arms and various other "advanced" features. A few of the folks preferred sticking with the original (so-called Basic) APBA game, but most of us switched over to the Master Game.

There were nine of us in the league, with each person having two teams. I don't remember all of the team names, but the league included Mary (Houtson *s and Bay City Babes), Al (California Medflys and Newark Neanderthals), Mike (El Paso Desperadoes and New Hampshire Minutemen), Doug (Delaware Destroyers and Louisville Sluggers), Rick (Indianapolis Turbos and Dallas Diamonds), Frank (Sparta Spartans and the Doc's), Fred (Honolulu Hurricanes and California Coolers), Steve (NYC Corporate Raiders) and me (Pocatello Penguins and Winnipeg Wilderness). As I recall, Rick's Diamonds beat my Penguins in the World Series that year.

... to be continued.