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.