Thinking about Jamaica

The snow has me thinking a lot about my spring break trip to Jamaica. Taking a stack of games isn't an option, so I'm thinking of card games that I can take.

I'm planning on taking Space Hulk: Death Angel, since I can play it solitaire. I'm also planning on taking Chrononauts or Early American Chrononauts and EcoFluxx, since they're easy to teach and fast to play.

I'm considering picking up a new card game or two prior to the trip. I'm especially intrigued by Fairy Tale by Z-Man Games. A couple of other Z-Man card games, Archeology and No Thanks also seem interesting and get good reviews at BoardGameGeek. Asmadi Game's Innovation is one of the hottest titles at BoardGameGeek. It may be a little too complex for relaxing in the sun, though.

I'll also bring a couple of decks of cards for traditional card games. I've been wanting to learn to play cribbage. If Gillian's parents are interested in joining in, I told Gillian that I'd teach them whist.

Aside from card games, I'll probably play some solitaire games at Wargameroom. If Al has some spare time, I'd like to try to connect online and play. There are a lot of good choices there.

2010 was a Looney Year

I hope to make a full "Year in Review" posting later this weekend, but I wanted to post my 2010 stats for games played. BoardGameGeek makes this pretty easy, since you can log all of your plays and then view a summary. If you're curious, you can see the games I played in 2010 by clicking here.

The two incarnations of Looney Labs' Fluxx that I own -- EcoFluxx and Monty Python Fluxx got the most plays this year (25 and 17 respectively). The World Cup 2010 Card Game was third with 14. Our most popular Friday Night game, Long Shot, was next with 12 plays. Two other Looney Labs games, Chrononauts and Early American Chrononauts finished fifth and seventh.

Granted, the Looney Labs games are short, which meant that the boys and I could play five games of EcoFluxx in the time it would take the gang to play three turns of Here I Stand. But, the games deserve their place at the top -- we really played them a lot (especially in the spring and summer). And, since they all run between $12 and $20, we definitely got my money's worth.

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)

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.

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.

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.