Blinded by Science

Well, our latest Tuesday night session was all about science!  We got in another play of The New Science, but before that, we tried out an eagerly anticipated arrival....

Earlier this year, I finally jumped on board the Kickstarter wagon, backing a number of projects.  One of them was the latest iteration of Alien Frontiers...so I wasn't exactly going out on a limb with that one.  However, one that I backed sight unseen was Compounded, from Dice Hate Me Games, by designer Darrell Louder.  Now, I decided to back this for a number of reasons.  First, I've gotten to know the folks at Dice Hate Me a little bit, and I've enjoyed the games they've been putting out - and I'm always happy to help a small independent publisher.  In fact, I met Darrell at this year's Prezcon - and marveled at how he restrained from throttling some younger players during a game of Pitch Car.  Second, I loved the theme, I'm a science guy - though I'm more comfortable with orbit mechanics than chemistry - and I loved the idea of a game based on science.  Third, the game got a thumbs up from my buddy Paul Owen, who had played a prototype at one of the UnPub events.

Well, as fortune would have it, Compounded arrived on my doorstep this past Monday.  I punched the pieces, and put on the stickers that night, but falling victim to an oncoming cold, I didn't get a chance to read the rules.  Not wanting to miss game night, I went to work snuffling and sneezing, and I threw Compounded in the game box, "just in case".  After medicating myself, and buying some hand sanitizer in an attempt to not spread my disease to my fellow gamers, I showed up at the Game Parlor, and since Paul was also joining us, and knew the rules, we quickly decided to give Compounded a try.  Setup was fairly quick, as I had each players components sorted into the test tubes (centrifuge tubes, really) that came as part of the Kickstarter campaign.  Paul quickly dealt the various chemical cards that would initially be up for play. 

My initial start with in 1 hydrogen, 1 carbon and 2 oxygens

The game consists of four phases per turn - "Discovery", in which you draw "elements" (i.e. plastic colored "jewels") from a bag - and importantly, make deals with other players; "Study", where you lay claim to chemicals that are in play; "Research", where you play your elements onto chemicals; and "Lab" where you can score for completed chemical compounds, and perform some actions to set you up for the next turn.  As you complete chemical compounds, not only do you score points, but you can increase your prowess in the various phases of the game, and also collect tools that will be useful.  But beware - hidden in the deck are Lab Fire cards, which will cause certain compounds to catch on fire, possibly exploding, scattering their elements to other compounds.  In such cases, it is always handy to have completed your fire extinguisher (needing carbon and oxygen).

Completing my extinguisher early in the game

So how would I rate my first Kickstarter "blind purchase"?  In short - a resounding success!  Everyone at our table enjoyed the game - there were several quotes along the lines of "this is a lot funner than I thought it would be!"  As for my part, I really enjoyed the game.  The game components are, for the most part, top notch.  The artwork and graphic design is fabulous, as one would expect from Dice Hate Me - using the Periodic Table as the score track is brilliant! The wheeling and dealing that happens during the Discovery phase is chaotic fun - more chaotic, than Settlers of Catan for example, since it's a free for all - and I see the chance of the game getting bogged down a bit there...but I think it's critical for player interaction.

If I had a couple of nitpicks, it would be that I found a few things to be on the small side.  The game is nice and compact - I was expecting a Ticket To Ride sized box, instead it measures a hair under 9" square - which is in itself fine, it just necessitates that everything else be a little smaller.  Specifically, the text on the player boards is tiny - although after a few plays, I doubt you'd be relying on that text.  The flame tokens to place on compounds after a Lab Fire are very tiny - make sure you don't lose them.  The centrifuge tubes that came as a Kickstarter bonus are a little overkill - they take up too much room in the box for the amount they store.  However, that's the nittiest of nitpicks, considering they were a bonus, and the folks at Dice Hate Me went through quite an ordeal to find something that they promised during the Kickstarter campaign.  In fact, from fragile materials, to size issues, the test tube issue seemed to cause the most headaches, and they very well could have just canned the idea, but they stuck with it and delivered on their promise - and I can't help but respect that.  In fact, for my first Kickstarter experience, I can't help but feel this is the way it should be done - constant updates, explanations for hiccups (i.e. the test tubes) - I never once worried that my "investment" was in trouble.  Now...bring on Brew Crafters!

The New Science and Time N Space

Well, it's been some time since my last blog post.  I made the decision that I didn't necessarily need to blog about every single game I've played...that was just turning into weekly recaps...instead I'm just going to post whenever I encounter something new and different, or there's something particularly compelling to talk about.

This past Tuesday, at our weekly game night, our group played two new games that I thought I'd spend some time discussion.  Actually, we played three games, the first being one of our favorites - Hansa Teutonica.  I want to mention that briefly, because Mike R. pulled out the victory with a very clever strategy that was semi-new to our group.  Usually in Hansa, the early game tends to be a struggle over people completing routes to the city of Gottingen in order to gain extra actions.  Inevitably someone claims an office in Gottingen in order to score points on all the folks completing the route for extra actions.  In our game, the very first person - Brian - to complete that route claimed the first office of Gottingen - and shortly thereafter Grant took the 2nd office.  So, the fight for Gottingen was more vicious than normal.  But Mike...he stayed out of that mess and quietly claimed the offices all across the north, include the towns of Groningen, Stade, and Lubeck - which open up Liber Sophiae, Privilegium and "Bag" actions respectively.  When the rest of us got around to using those routes, Mike was vacuuming in the points.  We all saw it, but no one did anything to stop him, and he won by a comfortable margin.

Alright...the first "new" game we played was The New Science, from Conquistador Games.  In this game, you take on the role of one of the famous Renaissance era scientists - Newton, Galileo, Kepler, etc.  You have 3 "energy cubes" for each turn, which you place on certain actions on the side of the board - re-arranging turn order, claiming "happening" cards, increasing your influence in several tracks, and most importantly - researching, experimenting and publishing scientific discoveries.  After everyone has placed, the actions are resolved, top to bottom, left to right - very similar to Dominant Species.  The bulk of the board is taken up by the "tech tree" of various scientific discoveries, which are broken up into 5 disciplines - astronomy, physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology. 

Each discovery is represented in a box with 3 levels - one for researching, one for experimenting and one for publishing.  In order to do those three actions successfully, you have to have a certain number of points in those areas - which are dictated by how good your particular scientist is in those areas, points that you can gain (or lose) on the action track, and in the case of experimenting, a die roll.  You can also use "rest points" that you have gained by using the turn order action space.  Lastly, to successfully publish, you must meet the requirements of having influence in different areas - government, religion, enterprise and science.

Now, I called the scientific discoveries a "tech tree" earlier, and that's what it is.  The higher level discoveries depend on the player having information on earlier discoveries.  The player can get that info by successfully experimenting on earlier per-requisite discoveries...or if they have been published by any player.  That's right...when you publish on a subject, you potentially open up higher level discoveries to other players.  So why publish?  Well, that's just about the only way you gain prestige (i.e. victory points).  In fact, that's really the core of the game, in my opinion...that decision on when to publish, and when to keep your discoveries to yourself (although someone else can certainly research and experiment on the same discovery as you).

One other thing I want to mention - starting with the 2nd round, 2 "Happening" cards are available each turn.  These can be "events", which affect everyone for that whole turn, "play" cards which take affect as soon as they are claimed or "laboratory" cards which give the player who claims it a continuing advantage for the rest of the game (or until he replaces it with another card).

I should mention that this is actually the 2nd time I've played this, but our first game a few weeks ago was rushed and cut a little short.  This time we played a full game with 5 players.  I'll say right up front that I really enjoy this game.  The tech tree mechanic is pretty unique, as far as I know.  In my limited experience, it seems to me that diversity is key - I got too wrapped up in the chemistry and biology sciences, and did well there, but then I was really shut out of the other sciences.  The "when to publish" decision is critical...and that also ties in to how you take your actions, and which particular research, experiment or publish action you claim (there are multiple, but they resolve in a very specific order...it can be easy to screw up and select a publish action that happens before your experiment action...in which case you've really screwed yourself.  Everyone at our table was new to the game, and everyone enjoyed it...some of the folks were not impressed with the pastel layout of the game board, but I didn't particularly have a problem with it.  I definitely would like to get this one to the table again soon.

The second new game we played was Time N Space by Stronghold Games.  I'm a big Stronghold Games fan, and last year at WBC owner Stephen Buonocore talked me into buying a ton of his games.  This year I resisted (well...I got Space Cadets:Dice Duel), but Stephen worked his wiley ways on Brian, who picked up TnS.  We finally had a chance to get this to the table on Tuesday.  We were fairly excited about trying this one, as the "innovative mechanic" is the use of sandtimers that each player uses to control their actions, in real time.  Additionally, the game is played to a strict 30 minute time limit (the Stronghold Games timer app for Android was very useful here...).

The theme of the game is interstellar trading.  Each player has 2 spaceships, 2 sand timers, and a player mat that has spaces which dictate how much he can produce, where to put demand tokens, and places to transport them to other players.  The goods/demand tokens are broken up into 4 different colors, and each player has 6 demand tokens of each color (3 1's, 2 2's and 1 3 demand).  The different areas on your player mat can produce goods of those colors, and you have to fly your spaceship to other people's planets, and deliver the amount of goods on their demand tokens to claim those tokens.  The demand tokens that you claim from other players are used for you score at the end of the game...but here's the catch.  You can only score for demand tokens in which you have managed to give away your own tokens of that color.  So you may have claimed a bunch of blue tokens from other players...but if you still have any of your blue tokens left, you don't get to score those.

A prototype pic I found on BGG

The sand timers are used for everything.  You move your ship - move it, but put a timer on it.  Want to create a new good?  Put a timer in that spot on your mat.  Same with placing new demand tokens an delivering goods.  You also have the opportunity to upgrade the various spots on your player mat...they start out only producing one good, or transporting 1 good etc...but you can pick up better tokens to place on your mat, but of course to place them, you have to use a sand timer.  The timers are 1 minute each...so in a 30 minute game, you're going to get at most 60 actions.

As I mentioned, we had high hopes for this game.  At the end...we were honestly, a little disappointed.  We were hoping the sand timers would drive a crazy real-time chaos-fest.  And it was chaotic, but in spurts.  I almost feel they would have been better if each player had two timers that were of different length.  Both of them being a minute long meant that you often take 2 actions right in a row, and then waited a minute for both of your timers to run out.  Our 4 player game also devolved into players A&B trading with each other and C&D trading with each other.  Which was not good, because you score multipliers based on the number of different people who's tokens you collect.  There is a lot of talking and negotiating in this game - "I need brown, put out brown, and fulfill that request for you"..things like that.  So, I dunno...I'm willing to try it again...in fact I WANT to try it again, because this game, more so than most, I think will require multiple plays in order to get a real feel for how you should do things.  That being said...I'm not absolutely clamoring for it again right away.

WBC 2013 Part 4

Ok, one last post about WBC 2013.  I'm not going to cover in depth everything that we did Saturday night and Sunday morning, because Paul did a great job covering it here and here.  Bottom line - we stayed up way too late on Saturday night, and then clung to every last minute into Sunday afternoon.

I didn't have quite as much fun with Article 27 as we did at Prezcon, but some of that may have been due to the late hour.  I also got a bum deal in which 4 of my 5 secret agenda tokens got pulled all on the same turn...and there was no way I was going to get everyone to agree to passing that many in one round.  All the same...I remain unsure about that game...with 6 players especially, it can be hard to keep track of all your bribes.  Panic on Wall Street I enjoyed, though it took me a few turns to get the hang of it.  I would like to try it with more than 5 players, though.  Code 777 - I've been wanting to try this with more than 2 players since Paul and I played it last year at WBC.  Unfortunately, 2 in the morning is not the best time to dive in...we gave it a shot, but it was just too much for our tired brains at that point.

On Sunday, I enjoyed Battle Line, which I picked up for $5 thanks to my $10 GMT coupon.  Neat little 2-player game - time will tell if I like it better than Lost Cities or not.  Spartacus - speed kills, speed kills.  My gladiator, with his ability to use speed dice as defensive dice, was a juggernaut in the arena.

I want to highlight my purchases.  Usually, I get caught up in convention fever and spend more than I should, and end up getting a stinker or two (see the "buy 1 get 2 free" Mayfair sale at Prezcon this year - there's a reason they were giving away some of the games for free).  I feel pretty good about my haul at WBC, though:

Dominant Species - Didn't play it at WBC, but I really enjoyed it during vacation this summer - I pretty much knew I was going to buy it before I got to the con.

Space Cadets:Dice Duel - possibly my best pickup of the con.  I still haven't had a chance to play the original Space Cadets, and I was suckered in a little by the "buy it first at WBC" schtick - but after a few plays, I can report that this game is a blast.  Especially after a long day hunkering down in front of "serious" games.

Pirate Dice - I had read about this, and previously tried to pick it up online, but it had been sold out.  When I saw it at a vendor table, I snatched it up quick.  I'm glad I did (though I found it online later for half the price) - this is another fun, wacky game - and much easier to get into than Robo Rally.  I've already ordered the expansions.

The New Science - Probably the only game I totally bought on a whim.  I'd heard a few good mutterings about it, but hadn't had time to really research it.  But the science theme called to me, and I went for it.  I've since played one game, and I'm glad I picked it up.  One game isn't enough to really run it through it's paces, and I'm mildly concerned about a mechanic or two...but all in all I really like it so far.

Agricola All Creatures Big and Small More Buildings Big and Small - I really liked this "mini Agricola" for 2 players when I picked it up last year.  It hasn't made it to the table recently...but I couldn't pass up on the expansion at the Z-Man booth.

Pandemic and On the Brink - Yes, I already owned Pandemic and it's expansion.  However, there's a new expansion coming out soon, and it will only be compatible with the new artwork in the Pandemic reprints.  So I rebought the base game and the first expansion.  The good news - the On The Brink box now fits everything...but will it fit the new expansion???

Battle Line - As mentioned, I got a $10 GMT coupon for winning Conquest of Paradise...I thought about getting the Dominant Species Card Game, but they were sold out, and Paul convinced me to pick this up instead, and I'm glad I did.

So...sadly, another WBC has come and gone.  And now I get to sit here and be jealous of all the info coming from Gen Con.  But, Prezcon is only 6 months away...and my copy of the Lords of Waterdeep expansion should arrive in a few days.  Looking forward to the next big event!