Unpub Mini - Chantilly, VA June 21st 2014

I seem to have been a little lax in my blogging lately, and I will make up for that in the near future.  First thing to do, however is to announce the "Unpub Mini" that Paul Owen and I are hosting on June 21st.

Ever wanted to give feedback directly to game designers?
Interested in trying the latest board game concepts before they hit store shelves?

If so, participation in an "Unpub" event may be just what you're looking for!

Founded in 2010, The Unpublished Games Network, called Unpub, is a growing community of game designers, publishers, players, retailers and artists working towards the creation of new and unique table top games that will keep people entertained for generations to come!  

The latest main Unpub convention in January 2014 featured over 50 designers with their latest concepts.  

 An Unpub “Mini” is chance to bring the Unpub experience to local venues and reach out to gamers, giving them a chance to provide valuable feedback and participate in the game design process.  On June 21st, an Unpub Mini will be held at:

Game Parlor

13936 Metrotech Drive

Chantilly, VA 20151

The event will run the duration of the store hours, from 11AM - 10PM.

Note that Game Parlor typically charges a $2 "table fee" that's good for all day to play in the store.  However, if you participate in at least one playtest, the Unpub Mini designers will pay for your ticket!

Here are some of the games that will be featured at the Unpub Mini:

Boondoggle - Boondoggle used to be just nice folks and dirt roads. Then, the money pours in. Small-time schemers and crooked dreamers bring their dirty machines and dirtier deals. There’s room for you in this town.  Designer - Mike Karg

East India Company - In the days of sail, opportunities emerged to bring exotic goods from around the known world to domestic markets. Players preside over European investment companies in 18th century global colonization and trade.   Designer - Paul Owen

Escape Velocity - Forget the US and USSR - this is the real space race and you're in the cockpit, trying to maneuver your space ship to victory!  Designer - Kiva Fecteau

Horrible Hex - An abstract tile laying and shifting game that pits opponents against one another in an arena of foresight and spatial geometry.  Designer - Jonathan Moffat

Lords of Baseball - An economic simulation   of owning a franchise, not playing 9 innings.  Designer - Max Jamelli

Knot Dice - Games, puzzles, and art using 44 custom dice that connect edge-to-edge creating Celtic knot designs. Included is a cooperative game, a real-time game, and several competitive dice-laying and dice-building games.  Designer - Matthew O'Malley

Post Position - An exciting horse racing game where you are literally invested in the horses. At the end of the race horses will payout only to players who own shares of those horses. Designer - Austin Smokowicz

Reactor Scram - In this co-op game, players work in a neglected reactor plant.   Some days are worse than others.  But they all know that the really bad day will come - when too many things break down at once.  Players must try to survive that really bad day and get the reactor plant in a safe condition before everything goes out of control...  Designer - Paul Owen

Salvation Road – Cooperative game in which the players try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world to reach “Salvation”. Players must survive the Marauders hunting them down at every turn and the environment itself.  Due to be published by Van Ryder Games in late 2014.  Designer - Michael Kelley

Santa’s Workshop – With the big night fast approaching, which team of elves will best help Santa prepare?  Build toys, collect coal for those on the naughty list…and don’t forget to feed the reindeer!  Designer - Keith Ferguson

The Last Bastion -  With your garrison slaughtered, you and your fellow citizens must defend your home of Bastion against the Barbarians. You aren't a trained soldier so you have to balance your time between training and fighting.  Designer - Peter Gousis

Trove - An asymmetrical fantasy adventure where players take on the roles of the Knight, the Goblin Horde, the Cave, and the Dragon — each with unique pieces, powers, and paths to victory!  Designer - David Somerville

2014 Prezcon - Part 3

Time to wrap up this year's Prezcon coverage.  Saturday at Prezcon is always interesting tournament-wise...there's a few heats left, but mostly you're getting down to semi-finals and finals...so your day may be packed...or you may have lots of time for open gaming.  My day started by bringing my extra games down to register for the auction - or rather, the auction store.  I wasn't sure whether to register for the regular auction or the "store", but I didn't think I had anything that would start a big bidding war, so I just went with the store.  One of the games I put in was Kids of Catan, which is a beautiful game, but the mechanics are little more than roll and move, and my kids outgrew it a few years ago.  I was gratified to later in the ballroom to see that a young mother has purchased it, and was playing it with her young children. 

Picture courtesy of boardgamegeek.com

Game-wise, first up for me was a 9:00 heat of Chicago Express - I was eager to see if I could put to use any of the lessons I had learned the previous day.  For a little while, it looked like it would just be a two player game between myself and another fellow - but Mike Senzig Jr. walked up at the last minute and joined us.  Mike is an excellent player, particularly at these types of economic games.  In the end, Mike beat me by about $10 or so...although I did the same thing to the 3rd player that had
been done to me the day before - diverting the red train just before it reached Chicago.  We finished in about 45 minutes or so, and we started a 2nd game "just for fun", and to try out some different theories, but we didn't get to finish as we had to run to other things.  If I'd only been in a 2-player game, I likely would have won and reached the finals cheaply...but I'm not too upset, as I'm sure I would have been far outclassed there.

Next up was the semi-finals for Carcassone.  My luck didn't quite hold up this year, and finished 3rd out of 4 players, failing to make the finals.  Which wasn't too bad, as that saved me from the dilemma of playing while running Lords of Waterdeep. 

2 games during the 2nd heat

At 1:00 I had my 2nd heat of Lords of Waterdeep.  I didn't play in this round, but just kind of hung out and waited for questions (there weren't very many), and did some browsing at the vendors.  I had 6 games of 4 players in the 2nd heat, and all the games went fairly quick.  After the heat, I did a quick tally
to get 16 finalists - I had 11 individual winners, and took the closest 5 2nd place finishers for the semis.  This in theory would set me up with 4 4-player semis, from which the winners would advance to the finals. 

I had some time before the semis, so I wandered to open gaming, and Paul joined me for a game of 7 Wonders with a group.  Again, names are escaping me, but there was one young guy there with his father and his future father-in-law, and Mark Crescenzi joined us as well.  I hadn't played 7 Wonders in a while, and I'd forgotten how much I like it.  The expansions are nice, but a simple game of the basic game is still a lot of fun.  We also had time to get in a game of The Resistance, although we aborted halfway through when the traitors became obvious.

At the Waterdeep semis, I ended up short on players, as some folks elected to play in Ra.  That turned into a little bit of an issue on Saturday night, as I was conflicting with both Ra and later Stone Age, which appeal to the same type of players.  For the semis, I ended up with 11 players, so we played 2 4-player games and 1 3-player game.  I was in the 3-player game against John Gaebler (who I had narrowly beat in Heat 1) and Jonathan Bartholomew.  I drew the building lords, Larissa, and I did a decent job building buildings without raising suspicion, and scoring 2 25 point quests in the final turns, but John Gaebler got the lieutenant early on, and then just got his euro-engine running, finishing with 198 points.  In the other games, Mahmooda Sultana and Tim Gleeson won, with John Emery being the highest 2-place finisher.  Again, however, we were conflicting with the final for Stone Age, which Mahmooda was in.  She begged me to move the final later, but I was looking to avoid what happened last year, when the Waterdeep final went until midnight.  So I told her she had to choose - she went with Stone Age, which put Mike Crescenzi in the final.

After a quick bio-break, we got the final started.  I drifted in and out, just making sure there were no questions.  John Gaebler was in the lead heading into the final round, but in a stunning play, Mike Crescenzi managed to used intrigue cards and build a building which allowed him to collect 4
wizards over the course of the turn to complete the 25 point wizard quest, and emerge with the victory.  It was a very dramatic ending to the game.  Overall the Waterdeep tournament went well again this year - although we were down to 41 players from 60-something last year.  At this point though, I'm 99% sure I'm going to turn over the GMing duties to someone else.  I enjoy helping out the con, but GMing Waterdeep caused me to miss some other opportunities I would have liked to take advantage of. 

The final - from L to R, Tim Gleeson, John Gaebler, John Emery, Mike Crescenzi

 

Next up was Saturday night gaming.  I found the rest of the gang downstairs playing Cash N Guns, and joined in for the 2nd round.  I'd seen this one played, but had yet to play it myself.  It's a quick fun social game, and I think distills the essence of Bang! down into something more steamlined.  After that, we played The Resistance, and then pulled out our old favorite Citadels.  I love Citadels, but 2:00 AM after 5 days of Prezcon may not have had me at my best....

Meeple City being terrorized

Sunday morning there were still heats of 7 Wonders and Settlers of Catan happening, but I headed to open gaming, hoping to get Santa's Workshop in front of Chris Kirkman and Darrell Louder.  I found Ben Rosset and Josh Tempkin down there, and looking at the game library, we chose to play Rampage.  I'd played a few times with my kids, but I'd been wanting to play with adults.  We had a blast, but Ben and I could not overcome Josh's sticky tongue (I'll leave it at that).  Brian joined us after that, and gave one of Josh's prototypes a try.  Entitled Lesser Evil at Unpub, he had rethemed it with a police motif, where you had to clean up the streets of your district in order to become the new commissioner.  The new name is completely escaping me...it might be Commissioner.  When I figure it out, I'll update the blog.  I very much liked the game, with a sort of dice-as-worker placement mechanic, as you tried to get rid of the "felonies" in front of you - and the use of cards to help you manipulate your dice.  However some actions may require you to increase the number of misdemeanors in your district, which, while not as bad as felonies, are still not good.  The objective is to be the player with the least amount of points in front of you by the end of the game.  I'd heard good things at Unpub about Lesser Evil, but I did hear complaints about lack of theme...Josh now has a theme...but I'm not 100% sure it's carried out that well yet...but he just has basic game pieces, I think some artwork on the various cards could help alleviate that quite a bit.  Mechanically, I very much liked it.

With threats of another snowstorm hitting the mid-Atlantic, that was about it for Prezcon 2014.  Overall, I had yet another great experience, though I think I learned a few lessons this year.  I was trying to stretch myself a bit thin.  I wanted to play in a bunch of tournaments of course, but I also enjoy the open gaming with our group.  The GMing cost me some opportunities to do some other things, and I was also trying to get Santa's Workshop in front of folks.  Unfortunately that only happened once, and I wasn't able to get it in front of Chris, Darrell and TC, but I did great feedback from the one play.  I don't know the attendance numbers, but it felt a bit down this year - I don't think they met their goal of 700.  I was very disappointed in the vendors this year - they seem to be getting fewer and fewer.  The most shocking thing may be that I only went home with 1 new game - Flash Point, which I picked up in the auction store.  In fact I actually made money on games this year, with my lot going for a little over $97 in the auction store.  There was also a bit of a stomach bug going around Prezcon this year - Mike Sr. fell prey to it on Wednesday, and Paul had a rough Sunday morning.  I understand a few people went the ER.  In the course of writing these blog entries, I will remind myself to once again try to remember to write peoples names down and take more pictures.  Next up is likely Historicon in the summer, and then WBC in August, but I look forward to next year's Prezcon.

2014 Prezcon - Part 2

Let's see...where was I...oh, that's right...up way too late playing Game of Thrones.  Thursday morning I had to be up by 9:00 for my demo of Lords of Waterdeep.  I had a few people come by - 3 or 4 - not quite as many as showed up for the demo last year.  Waterdeep has been out for a year and a half now, and is quite popular...most euro enthusiasts have probably played it by now.

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

After my demo, I headed straight for a heat of Pillars of the Earth, again being GM'd by my buddy Paul Owen.  I was in a 3 player game with Mark Beckman and another gentleman who's name escapes me.  I'm very much a novice at Pillars, and I know that Mark is an excellent euro game player, But I played a very good game...right until the last turn.  Truth be told, I thought the game was coming down to me or Mark, and I had discounted our 3rd player...and so did Mark.  In the penultimate turn, I used a pawn to take the first player for the last turn, setting myself up to hopefully take the glassblower...which would have given me a lot of points.  Unfortunately, the glass blower ended up on the board, vice in the area where he could be bought immediately.  As I drew pawns from the bag, I of course drew Mark's pawn first.  He hemmed and hawed, but ultimately decided to go for the defensive move of paying to get the glassblower (blocking me from getting it).  I drew about half the rest of the pawns before I realized, that as the player drawing the pawns, it had been my right to take one "mulligan" and redraw.  We discussed it at the table, if I could go back, and brought in Paul who ruled (correctly, IMO) that I had forgotten it...so tough luck.  In the end that likely cost me the game...but to my and Mark's surprise our 3rd opponent came out of nowhere to claim the victory.  Which is a lesson in never underestimating anyone.

At noon, I got in a heat of Carcassonne, and managed to win.  For whatever reason, I've been doing well at Carcassonne the last few years at Prezcon - 2nd overall 2 years ago, and 3rd last year.  With my win, I was on my way to the semi-finals again. Directly after that, I played in a heat of Stone Age, where I was promptly trounced by a Stone Age afficianado named Rodney.  I made the mistake of not collecting very many cards - I was in the lead, and then promptly got lapped when the card points were counted.

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

Next up, at 3:00 was a heat of Chicago Express.  I'm not a huge fan of stock market type games...and despite it's train theme, that's really what Chicago Express is.  However, I find this game growing on me.  In fact, I like it more and more every time I play.  My heat didn't go so well - we had a 3 player game, one lady was brand new to the game...but the other fellow was clearly a veteran player.  I did learn a hard lesson, as I took 2 of the shares for the red railroad, he took the remaining 1 share, and just as I had the red railroad approaching Chicago, he veered it off in a different direction.  The veteran won by a significant amount.  I would also like to give kudos to Lee Sensabaugh, the GM -


who in my opinion is one of the friendliest GMs - or person, in general - at Prezcon. 

We had time late that afternoon to get our gang (Brian, Tom, myself, Paul and the Senzig clan) together in open gaming and get in a game of Viva Java. We had to cut short due to some pressing tournaments coming up, but I was likely on the way to victory, thanks to playing the "going rogue" card, and investing in other players brews.  Halfway through the game, we did have designer T.C. Petty III show up!

The South Island!

Next up was one of the highlights for me - my old favorite Conquest of Paradise, once again GM'd by designer Kevin McPartland.  This year, Kevin decided to mix it up by adding in almost all the optional rules, plus the expansion random event cards.  I was excited about this, as I was ready for things to be changed up a bit.  In my first game, as Raiatea, I discovered New Zealand early on - which, with the optional rules gave me both the north and south island.  However, the player playing Samoa used the random event of Fijian Raid to completely decimate his Tongan neighbor, paving the way for him to move in for the kill.  He was able to ride that to victory. 

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

After Conquest, our "gang" got together for some late night gaming, bringing out Space Cadets: Dice Duel, and following with a favorite from last year, Bang!  Dice Duel was a blast, although I was surprised we didn't go more attention from others in the room.  It was somewhat awkward with uneven players, but we made it work.  With Bang!, I threw in one of the expansions, and that only served to confuse things - some of the cards were odd, and the new characters didn't seem that balanced - Mike Sr. had a guy that could hold 10 cards, for example.  The one drawback to Bang! is that it can drag a little long, and with player elimination, that can be no fun...in the end, we called it quits with Tom's sherriff and Mike Sr.'s outlaw in a virtual standoff.

The mornings always seem to come early at Prezcon, and Friday was no exception - even though the first thing on my docket was the 10:00 heat of Lords of Waterdeep.   I had about 20ish folks show up for the first heat, and I managed to play this year as well.  I was determined to keep it to 4 player games this year, and in my first heat I think I only had to go to 5 with one game.  I only had one group go long, but they were able to find me over at the 2nd heat of Conquest of Paradise. 

Friday afternoon and evening ended up being a Conquest of Paradise marathon.  In the 2nd heat, I was once again Raiatea.  In an interesting twist, New Zealand was discovered directly between Raiatea and Hiva.  The Hiva player and I decided on a truce - he would take the North Island, I would take the South.  I also made a run for sweet potatoes, though I was unsuccessful.  My memory is failing me here a little...as everything from that day is a bit jumbled together, but I did not win, and then Kevin had to decide on how to run the semis/final game. 

The final was scheduled at 4:00, but Kevin wanted to run 2 semis starting at 3:00, as he had 5 individual heat winners, and would fill in with 3 2nd place finishers - of which I was one.  In one moment that made me ornery, one young player that was a heat winner complained because that would conflict with a heat of Leaping Lemmings.  Kevin was hemming and hawing, especially since
not all the winners showed up.  The young fellow went so far as to get the tournament director, Justin, to come over and arbitrate (at which point Justin said "Kevin is one of our best GM's...whatever he decides goes").  In the end, Kevin ran the two semis, and I made it in. 

Picture courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com

In our semi, I was with Brian, and Steve Bondra, and another fellow.  I had a decent game, but again finished 2nd to Steve.  As it turns out, in the other semi, Steve Cameron ran away with the victory in such a dominating fashion that both I and Brian (our 3rd place finisher) made it to the finals.

The final game started out terribly for me.  I found no islands for the first 3 turns.  That was drawing various remarks of pity from the other players...and they were completely discounting me.  I should mention that I was Hiva, and Brian was playing Raiatea.  At one point he essentially offered me a small island as a way to appease me and stop military aggression.  It sort of worked, as I then went on a tear and found a bunch of islands in a row.  I also successfully discovered sweet potatoes.  I was gearing up to land colonists on 4 islands at once, for an 8 point jump, when Steve Bondra declared victory.  As Samoa, he found a bunch of islands and was able to isolate himself.  One more turn, and I think I would have been able to make a run at it - but isn't that always the way of things?  I was still able to squeak out a 3rd place finish.  In general, I liked playing with the advanced rules, though Malaria never came into play, and Sweet Potatoes are had to get to.  New Zealand factored in several of my games, and the random events change the strategy significantly, in my mind.  The rule is that the player in last place gets to draw and implement the random events - this leads to a tactic of intentionally lagging behind.  In the finals, I was drawing the majority of the time, but I never got any of the "super" cards.  Twice Steve Cameron managed to lag behind me, and he got two cards that would have helped me significantly.  Oh well...lesson learned for WBC....

After almost 8 hours of Conquest of Paradise, it was off to open gaming.  Some other familiar faces were showing up, including Ben Rosset, Nick Ferris and Josh Tempkin.  I got in a game of Coup with Ben, Nick and several other fellows, and managed to pull off the win.  Although I still don't think I caught Ben lying.  After that, Ben, Nick, Josh and Brian were gracious enough to give Santa's Workshop a try.  They only ended up getting through about half a game, but I got quite a bit of good feedback.  I loved Unpub, but with 3 game designers playing, I think I got more valuable feedback during that playtest than during Unpub.  This led to significant changes, which I will detail in an upcoming blog post.  After closing that up, Brian, Tom and I sat down with Ben to playtest his Homebrewers - the "prequel" to Brewcrafters.  I think Ben has another solid idea here, although it's certainly in a more "rough" stage than when I playtested either Brewcrafters or Brewcrafters:The Travel Card Game.  Combining dice rolling, negotiation, and card management, I look forward to playing the next iteration the next time I see Ben. 

Well that was enough for that night, and that's enough for this blog entry.  Next up in Part 3, I'll wrap up with Saturday and Sunday, and some overall thoughts about Prezcon 2014.

2014 Prezcon - Part 1

Well, another year has come and gone for my annual pilgrimage to Charlottesville, VA - home of Prezcon.  Prezcon is the first game convention I attended, way back in 2009.  Hard to believe this was my 6th year attending.  In 2009 my buddy Brian and I started on Thursday..in the last few years that migrated to Wednesday.  This year, our friend Tom had business meetings in Charlottesville on Monday and Tuesday, giving Brian and I the excuse to join him at the convention on Tuesday evening.  Which quickly turned to Tuesday afternoon.  Incredibly, the wives bought off on this.  We'll pay later, I'm sure.

The first game we settled down to was, like in previous years, Circus Maximus.  This year, GM Jake Jacoby had a surprise for us - instead of the typical oval, we were racing around a "cloverleaf" track, with a free-for-all area in the center.  Unlike the last several years, I decided to try being a "rabbit" - in other words, a light, fast chariot.  That was the idea, anyway - I had poor rolls on my setup, and ended up on the slower end of the lights, with not much in the way of stamina either (used for whipping to go faster).  I was also chosen to start on the inside lane, which meant I was the furthest back at the start.  There was not a whole lot of drama to the race as another light chariot got out in the lead and stayed there, despite the efforts of the heavies to smash him to bits.  The cloverleaf made for an interesting change, but I feel that it was to the advantage of the light chariots, as once they got ahead, it was not as easy for the heavies to get to them as it is on the oval, when they can slow down and wait to be lapped. 

Next up was Power Grid, an old favorite.  I'm always a little wary of the heavier euros as Prezcon, as there are some real sharks in the water, but I consider myself competent enough at Power Grid that I won't embarrass myself, and I could even make a good showing.  In this case, though, I simply played awful.  Actually, I don't think I was doing too terrible, but I was letting the leaders slip away, and I made the move to catch up at the wrong time, buying up to 12 houses, when the rest of them stalled at 11, which ended up killing me in turn order the following turn.  I finished in last place :(

For some reason, Brian, Tom and I decided to end our Tuesday with a game of Dungeon Lords.  This is a great game, but I hadn't played in a while, and it wasn't coming back very quickly.  Tom had never played, but fortunately Brian had played recently and got us squared away.  Again...a great game...but probably not one to start after midnight.  We were up to 2:30...starting off Prezcon with a bang.

Next morning...since we were there for a Wednesday morning for the first time, I finally got to play in the Prezcon Agricola tournament.  See my earlier comments about the euro sharks...and unlike Power Grid, I don't consider myself a very good Agricola player.  I was at a table with Tom, our friend Mike Senzig Jr., who'd arrived that morning, and Aaron Buchanan, the GM of Castles of Burgundy, and a very good euro player.  In the card draft, I tried to set myself by taking a lot of cards that helped with wood gathering and fence building.  I was doing OK at the beginning, I think, but I waited far too long to grow my family.  Mike was able to build a couple of extra rooms early on, and get to 4 family members pretty quickly, and then he was off to the races. 

Avast, me hearties!

Following Agricola, I played in the Merchants and Marauders tournament.  This is a game that got a lot of press when it came out a few years ago, and I snatched up early...but it had been a while since I had played.  In our previous plays, our group thought that the Merchants had a bit of an advantage...but what fun is that?  For the tournament, the GM lowered the speed on galleons, and allowed pirates to go into port after other players.  In my 3-player heat, we all went the pirate route.  One player had the misfortune of running into a Spanish man-o-war, which doomed him in his sloop.  I managed to upgrade to a frigate, and was doing well as a pirate, but won the game by delivering an in-demand cargo to my home port and stashing my riches.  With my win, I qualified for the final, but unfortunately, that conflicted with my first Lords of Waterdeep heat.  I enjoyed the game, but some of the nagging feelings returned - it can run a bit long, and there can be downtime while other players perform their actions - particularly in port.

Following M&M, it was time for my annual game of Formula De.  I like this racing game a lot, but I dread it at Prezcon a little bit, because the GM Doug Gallulo will run up to 10 players on a board.  That's too many, in my opinion.  Sure enough, in our race we had 9 players, although I was lucky enough to be drawn starting in 3rd position.  I grabbed the lead halfway through the first lap, but miscalculated on the back stretch, as I was trying to set myself up to use the 30-sided die coming out of the next turn.  I stayed in 4th when I should have gone to 5th, and was promptly passed.  2 turns later as I desperately tried to make up the difference, I spun out, and that was it.  This game can be unforgiving if you make one mistake, or get one bad roll.

I'm trying to pay my debts...

Wednesday night it was time for Game of Thrones.  By random draw, I ended up with the Lannisters - I should have asked to redraw, as I think in every game except for one, I've played the Lannisters, and that put me off from the get go.  The game progressed fairly normally for the first 2 or 3 turns, but the player to my right, as the Tyrells was clearly coaching the younger Martell player to his advantage.  The were putting a pounding on the Baratheon player, who was very young and pretty inexperienced.  Instead of helping Baratheon, I sensed blood in the water and tried to take my share.  I should mention that we had turned up several muster cards, but nothing had come up to adjust our supply yet.  I had captured a bunch of barrels on the board, but without the supply action, I could not take advantage.  The Tyrell player eventually took the land area between our capitals, and also The Reach, which contains two barrels - and he threatened to take Lannisport from me by using the Ser Loras cards which allowed him to carry his attack token with him.  I had to quietly accept my losses - and THEN the supply card came.  Of course.  By this point, with Baratheon effectively out of the game, the Starks, Greyjoys and Lannisters had essentially an alliance against the Tyrell-Martell block.  There was some baiting of the Martell player, accusing him of being a pawn for the Tyrells, which caused him to make at least one bad move, attempting to "prove" he was playing his own game.  In the end, the Starks made a play to clean up the last of the Baratheon holdings, the Tyrells turned on their Martell lackey, and used that Ser Loras card to attack the Starks.  In an equal battle, it came down to the draw of the "Tides of Battle" card, the Tyrell player got a +1 to Stark's "0", giving him the victory.  The game didn't end until 2:30...which was WAY too late for that to go on...

Next up...part 2 of Prezcon 2014

Unpub 4 - Day 2

Well, Day 2 of Unpub 4 started with even less sleep than the previous day.  When we got to the site, we were treated a pancake breakfast and a panel discussion with a group of publishers - I won't try to name them all here because inevitably I'll forget someone...

After the panel, I headed over to try Nate Levan's New Bedford - I'd heard some good word of mouth about this game and wanted to give it a try.  I'll give a further review below when I comment on all the games I played - but I'm certainly glad I did play it. 

Santa's Workshop Day 2

I should mention that towards the end of the con on Saturday night - around 9:00 or so, I had a young lady named Tierna stop by my table and eye up my game.  When I asked if she was interested, she nodded yes, and I gave her a quick explanation.  Since it was getting a bit late, I promised her a game on Sunday.  After playing New Bedford, I found Tierna at Daniel Solis' table, and she agreed to come over when she finished up.  Not only did she come over, she brought her sister Becca and her dad Mike with her, and we got in a 4 player game of Santa's Workshop.  Tierna was 10 years old, and I was eager to see how she did, as I originally conceived of the game as a more "family game".  It took us about 1:15 to finish, and I got some good feedback.  Tierna did ok - she jumped out in the lead, but faltered towards the end.  I think the full game may be a bit much for the under 12 crowd.  Becca, who I'm guessing was about 16 or so, had an interesting quote at the end.  She told that when they decided to come to the con, she marked every game in the program on a 1 to 5 scale.  She had my game marked as a "1", which meant she had no interest - and she only played because her sister begged her to.  She then stated that she really enjoyed it, and had no idea that it would be such a fun game.  This, of course, only served to back up Game Salute's point that the theme might drive away "serious" gamers.

After some more time at other games, I saw two folks eyeing up my table and hurried back to see if they were interested in player.  I recognized the woman as long time owner of "Our Game Table", Kathy Stroh.  I convinced Bill and Kathy to sit down for a 3 player game.  We finished our game in under an hour, and again I received valuable feedback.  We found a couple of cards that needed tweaking, and Kathy opined that she thought the game play was a little too deep for the theme.  Hmmm...familiar territory here. 

That was it for SW for the weekend - a grand total of 4 playtests.  Between the playtests and the Game Salute session, I got great feedback.  So, where do I stand with Santa's Workshop now?  I feel like I have a bit of a mixed bag.  I got nothing but positive feedback from playtesters.  My aggregate scores on from my feedback forms were as follows: 

Game Length:  3/5
Learning Ease: 4/5
Decisions: 4/5
Downtime: 4/5
Interactivity: 3/5
Originality: 4/5
Fun: 4/5

My lowest grades on individual feedback forms were a 2/5 on game length and 2/5 on interactivity.  The game length doesn't surprise me, as I know the game is too long.  I should also mention that my scores may be skewed a little high as I got one sheet that was all 5/5 (thanks, Tierna!) .  But all in all, I think I got good scores for my first ever game, with only 3 playtests ever coming into the con.

In terms of mechanics, I need to tighten up the game for play length.  I originally wanted a game that could hold 6 players just because I don't think there are a lot that do that well.  Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to scale back.  I think I'm going to cap it at 4 players.  Perhaps if some other tweaks bring game length down, I'll revisit that.  But the other reason to go to 4 players is that makes it easy to limit # of spaces per # of players -> n-1, it's that easy.  When you get to 5 and 6 players, only taking one space per room away isn't enough, and I'm having a hard time figuring out where to make that transition from n-1 to n-2.  And it seems like it should differ per room, which is complicated.  The other play length decision to make is to cap the game at 9 turns.  I originally wanted 12 turns for the "12 Days of Christmas" theme - but that's just too long...and I'll talk about theme in a minute.  As far as other mechanics...there are some coal cards that need tweaking, I need to simplify the "magic mirror" card, and I need to play with the Reindeer track - tweak the scoring, and perhaps add some more theme to that somehow.

So...now's the big question...what about the theme?  Game Salute didn't really think the theme would work.  Several comments and feedback I got seemed to reinforce that - "I wasn't expecting such a deep game with this theme", etc.  However, some folks seemed to think with the right artwork and box presentation, that might be able to be overcome.  I think I'm going to stick with the general theme for now, but with a bit of tweak.  Instead of building gifts leading up to Christmas Eve, I think I'm going to set the game at the South Pole, with the teams of elves competing to see who gets called up to the "Big Leagues" of the North Pole.  I did have a little issue, theme-wise with wondering if Santa would really let the elves get away with shenanigans as they were actually building toys for children.  By making the game be about a "boot camp" of sorts, I can get away with that.  I can possibly also work in more theme with the reindeer - such as teaching them to fly or somesuch.  I think this could lead to more "edgy" artwork as well - maybe Santa painted as a sort of drill instructor or somesuch, and some sort of tagline "Before they made it to the North Pole, they had to claw their way up from the South".  Ok...that's terrible.  But you get the idea.  I talked to Chris Kirkman and Darrell Louder about giving it a try at Prezcon - I'm interested to hear what they say.  Maybe get it in front of some publishers at Cons later this year and get more feedback.  If theme is a continuing issue, then I bite the bullet and try to retheme it later this year.  Maybe competing toy factories, or something like that.  I just don't want it to lose any of it's charm.  So...to be continued, I guess. 

Other Games I Played

I have this terrible nagging feeling that I'm forgetting a game I played, but I'll press on.  In Part 1 of my recap, I talked about Ben Rosset's Brew Crafters Card Game, so I won't repeat that here.  The first game I played at Unpub was Ohalo by Andrew Lenox and Jason Kotarski.  Jason is the designer of Great Heartland Hauling Company, which I talked about here and here.  Ohalo (named after the archaeological site) is a card game, with the unique mechanic that to start each game turn, you take the resource cards and kind of throw them up and let them land in a pile - some face up, some face down.  You, as a hunter-gatherer, have a few different action you can take.  You can gather various fruits & mushrooms - which entails trying to slide together resources of the same type using one finger and not disturbing the rest of the pile.  You can hunt for various animals - the more of which you gather, the better your score.  You can collect wood...which is then used to build various buildings - those which allow you to store resources for points, or do actions more efficiently, etc.  We only got to play about a half a game, because I had to demo SW, but I must say, I really enjoyed it.  The sliding of the cards in the pile was my favorite part - and a very fun mechanic.

Ohalo - I managed to move some berries around the entire edge of the pile!

Next I'll talk about another Jason Kotarski game, Sunset Shuffle.  This is a dice rolling game that consists of 6 turns.  On each turn, that turn # is wild.  In other words, on turn 1, all 1's are wild, etc.  Three more card are flipped up, which will number between 1-6, and your job is to put pairs of dice on each number card (the dice matching that number).  The catch is, the first two people to place dice get a "lifeguard" die, which they have to roll as well, which does things like block their numbers, although it can be passed on.  This was a fun frantic dice rolling frenzy, and all through the con, if I heard lots of shouting and yelling(in a good way), it tended to be coming from that table.  I like the lifeguard die mechanic, although with such a fast and furious game, it can be hard to tell who placed dice first.  Maybe a lifeguard die on each card, and the first person to place on a specific card gets that die.

Brew Crafters The Card Game was not the only Ben Rossett creation I tried at Unpub.  On Sunday I sat down for a game of Building the British Royal Navy.  In this game, you are bidding on contracts from the British Navy to build their warships.  This game is all about bidding and auctions - which I understand is a departure from how the game first started out.  In addition to bidding on the warships themselves, you have to bid on materials, and then the services of the subcontractors to build the hull and armaments.  Ben had the game limited to 10 bidding chits per player, all at pre-defined values.  By the third epoch, in our 4 player game, we were finding the services of the sub-contractors to be in high demand - too much so, in fact.  We were also a little frustrated with the specific values on our limited tokens.  I think we gave Ben some valuable feedback - we talked about still limiting the number of bidding chits, but letting the players decide how much each was worth.  I think there's a gem of a game in here - I like the theme, and I like the idea of a game that is exclusively auctions.  But, it's a bit raw now - but that's what Unpub is for, and I expect next time I have a chance to play it, Ben will have made substantial improvements.

I mentioned New Bedford at the top of this blog, and this was one I heard some rave reviews about.  I was happy to discover that designer Nate Levan is a fellow Hokie - Aerospace Engineering, even.  Go Hokies!  New Bedford is a game about building a coastal town around the whaling industry.  Starting with a town base and docks, you send your two workers out to collect resources, build new buildings and launch your whaling vessel to hunt.  Each building that is built will provide new actions, but to use them you must pay the building owner.  For the whaling, how far out to sea you launch depends on how much food you pack on board.  Each turn your whaling vessel draws closer to shore, and you draw chits from a bag.  They will be one of three different types of whale, or open ocean.  When you get back to port, you pay to have the whales processes - either $1, $2 or $3 depending on the whale type, with the more expensive being worth more VPs (I know Wright Whales are the cheapest, and Sperm Whales are the most expensive, but I'm blanking on the "middle" whale).  The game lasts 12 turns, and the player with the most VPs wins (you can also get VPs from money and certain buildings).  Our 3 player game lasted less than an hour, and that felt like about the right amount of time - maybe a little too quick!  This is a very polished game, and it was easy to see why it was getting some buzz.  I had very little in the way of suggestions - I thought maybe it would be neat to have more than 20 buildings in the game, and you could just draw 20 randomly at the start to get some variability - Nate was way ahead of me, already having more buildings in development.  We talked about some of the chits drawn from the bag having "events" such as storms - I think that would be a nice addition, if not overdone.  We talked a little about getting players access to a 3rd worker - but my fellow players were more interested in that than I was.  So...a very impressive game, one that I feel is essentially "done", and I wouldn't be surprised to see it on store shelves this time next year.

Final Thoughts

So, my first Unpub...with my first game...how was the overall experience?  In a word - fantastic.  The convention is clearly outgrowing it's roots.  Next year it will be at a different location (as yet undisclosed), and Darrell tells me it will be more like a "traditional" con - the con in the hotel where everyone is staying, vendors, more traditional con hours, etc.  I'm really looking forward to seeing where he takes it.

I mentioned in Part 1 that there was some raffles.  Darrell had a ton of games to raffle off, dontated by companies that weren't even there in person, such as Stronghold Games.  (I'm guessing more and more publishers will start showing up in person in the future.).  Anyone who playtested a game could get a raffle ticket for each feedback form they turned in.  Randy gave me his as he left on Saturday.  I kept just missing by a few numbers.  Paul won twice!  There were lots of good games, and I admit I was a little jealous of the winners.  Then right before we left on Sunday, Darrell called for a kid to come to the stage.  As it happened, Tierna, who playtested for me went up.  Darrell asked her for a number between 1 and 52 (the number of designers registered).  She picked "36", and Darrell calls out "Is Keith Ferguson here?"  I proceeded to the stage, thinking I had just won a game.  But no...I was getting a different prize...the first official (and free) registered Game Designer for Unpub 5!  Wow!  I was still a little down after my Game Salute feedback, and I have to say, this really made my day!  It definitely motivated me to come back next year with something even better.  Maybe it will be a re-worked Santa's Workshop, maybe something different (I've had a flash of inspiration on a new game in the last day or two).  Either way, I'll be happy to be there - one of the things I haven't really touched on is how nice it was to meet a bunch of fellow designers (I'm not sure I can really call myself that yet...).  It's a great, friendly, supportive atmosphere, and I definitely look forward to meeting those that I missed this time, and playing more of their games!

Unpub 4 - Day 1

Well, as was mentioned in my last post, I spent this past weekend in Delaware at the Unpub 4 convention.  The short version is - what a fantastic event, I loved going, I'll be back next year (more on that in a bit) - but I came out of it with mixed feelings for my game, Santa's Workshop. One big regret is that I brought my camera...and proceeded to take very little pictures.  So, I apologize for the scarcity of pictures in this post.

I drove up with my friend Paul Owen, and after checking into our hotel, we headed over to the local pizza joint for the Unpub "designers dinner".  This was basically a meet and greet and a chance to network with some folks, with a raffle thrown in (idiot that I am, I lost my raffle tickets within 5 minutes of getting them and had to beg for more).  I sat with Nathaniel Levan and his wife Anna and got to know them a little bit (although we didn't figure out until the next day that Nate and I are both Hokies).

After the dinner, we headed back to the hotel, expecting to get in some gaming with various folks.  Although at some point, we heard someone talking about their "sell sheet" - which is basically a 1 page sheet that highlights your game with a basic description and pertinent information (game length, # of players, things like that).  Basically, an ad for your game.  Paul and I looked at each other - neither of us had thought to make up one of those.  So we spent an hour or so in the hotel room furiously throwing something together...and then found that the hotel only had black and white printers.  Oh well, better than nothing, I guess.  After that we did head to the lobby for some gaming, and ran into Ben Rossett, who gave us his Brew Crafters Card Game prototype to try out.  Paul and I played a 2 player game and found the game easy to pick up, and interesting to play.  The gist of it is that you can play each card in one of two ways - as an ingredient in a recipe, or face up in front of you as a piece of equipment or worker that will allow you to brew future recipes more efficiently or for more points.  I ended up playing 10 cards face up in front of me, though in the end Paul beat me by 2 points.  We then played a 3 player game with Ben, and I claimed victory by focusing on brewing Special Reserves.  Inspired by the Dice Hate Me 54 Card Challenge, Ben created this game with only 54 cards, 8 of which were recipe and scoring cards.  My biggest concern in the end was having enough cards to support 4 players.  There may be a few other tweaks, but otherwise I think it's a solid card game.

After not enough sleep, on Saturday morning we headed over to the convention to get set up.  My family has a log cabin advent calendar, which I brought along and decorated with elf meeples in order to try and attract some attention.  That may have been more trouble than it was worth to haul along, but it did get some comments.  In any case, my first actual playtest of Santa's Workshop at Unpub ended up being with my friend Randy, who's a regular at our Tuesday night game nights at Game Parlor.  He had played a few weeks ago when I brought it to GP, and had really liked it.  When he learned about Unpub, he convinced his friends Kurt & Elizabeth to join him there for the day.  We played a 4 player version of SW, and everyone seemed to like it.  I got some feedback on a few minor things like the wording of a few cards.  We talked a bit about the # of players, and how best to restrict the number of spaces in the rooms.  We also only played a 9-turn game, as opposed the 12-turn games I originally envisioned (themed to the "12 Days of Christmas").

I spent some time playing some other designers games (I think I'll detail those in a separate blog post), before getting a group of players together for a 5-player test that afternoon.  I had Anna Rutledge, Andrew, Duane, Rob and Josh (other than lack of pictures, I also really failed on writing everyone's full name down - and getting cards from everyone).  Their 5 player game took about 2 hours, with Duane winning in the end after building and scoring the swing set.  This group used the coal cards the most out of any group that played all weekend.  Everyone seemed to like the game, and I got a lot of good feedback.  Game time was definitely an issue (2 hours, and again we only played a 9 turn game).  There was the interesting suggestion to perhaps have some of the coal cards be used for positive player interaction (instead of just "screw your neighbor" cards).  Anna in particular had a quote that resonated with me later - she said something to the effect of "I wasn't expecting much from this game, but it turned out to be really good."

Shortly after that playtest, I was scheduled to give a 10 minute pitch to Game Salute.  Paul had gone in earlier, so I knew a little of what to expect - about 3 minutes to describe the game, 3 minutes or so for questions from them, and then 3 or 4 minutes of feedback.  I brought just the game board, a player tableau, and some sample gift and coal cards.  I was a little nervous, but I think I did a pretty good job in getting through most of the rules and play style of the game in 3 minutes or so.  The rest of the "interview" took me a little by surprise, as they almost exclusively focused on the theme I had chosen.  In a nutshell, their concern is that with such a "light" theme as Santa's Elves building gifts, a family might buy this game expecting something that very young kids could play, and be shocked when they got home and found a more complex game.  That is, if they bought it in the first place, because with all my pieces and such, the game would probably retail in the typical $40-$50 euro game price range.  On the flip side, they thought gamers - who would likely enjoy the complexity - wouldn't pick it from the shelf because they would think it was a light family game.  On the positive side, they did say they liked a couple of the mechanics of the game, and I should perhaps think about re-theming it.

So, I was understandably a little disappointed coming out of the sales pitch.  My first reaction was to think that they were wrong, and there was room for a game that could satisfy both families and gamers.  (I have plans to include rules for more family-friendly play).  But I couldn't help but think that Anna's reaction to the game only backed up their point - she didn't think there would be much to the game, and was pleasantly surprised when it was deeper than she anticipated. 

That was it for playtesting SW for the day.  I played some other games(more on that later), and then
 we headed back to the hotel for some more late night gaming that night.  Paul and I got in a few 2-player games -
Mr. Jack Pocket and 1955:The War of Espionage.  Mr. Jack Pocket has become one of my favorite games to play on my tablet or phone, and I wanted to introduce Paul to it.  I've not played the original Mr. Jack, though Paul has, and he said it had a similar deduction feel, if much different mechanics.  As for 1955, Paul brought it because he don't get a chance to play it at home much.  This is a sort of "tug of war" game as you try to gain influence in various countries.  I thought it was a mildly interesting game, with some interesting card play, but ultimately too long for the type of game it is.  I had picked up Gravwell at the Unpub vendor, after hearing a bunch of rave reviews.  Ben Rossett joined us, and explained the game, as well as a 4th player who's name is escaping me (must. write. down. names.)  It is indeed a very elegant game, with easy to learn rules, and a depth of complexity that has you trying to get in the head of the other players at the table.  For me, I think it may be a victim of it's hype - I very much liked it, but I'm not sure I would rave about it as much as others have.  At the very least, it serves as a good reminder that an excellent game need not be Agricola-like in complexity.  Lastly, we got in a couple of 5-player games of Coup with myself, Paul, Ben, Matthew O'Malley, and Doug (Who's last name I can't find for the life of me).  This was my first time at Coup - I don't know if I like it better than The Resistance, but it is a very fun game.  And I think Ben Rossett is lying when he says he never lies during the game.


Next up- Day 2...a few more playtests of SW, and my overall thoughts on Unpub...

Getting Ready for Unpub

First...wow, what happened to December?  I haven't posted a blog since November 24th, and I'm way overdue.  Perhaps I'll go back in a future installment and revisit the games that were played over the holidays.  But for now, I want to talk a little about the big event that's starting in just 4 days :

That's right, this Friday, January 17, is the start of Unpub 4.   In a previous post, I talked about how I thought I'd missed registration, and then got in when Darrell Louder opened up some new seats.  Well, now the time is almost upon us, and I find myself frantically getting ready.  I've had a few more play tests of Santa's Workshop since that first one back in November - my brother and sister tried it out over Thanksgiving.  My buddy Tom came up for a gaming weekend in December and we got in a 3 player game with my wife.  However, up until that point it had all been my family and Tom, who is one of my oldest and closest friends.

Last week at our weekly game night at The Game Parlor in Chantilly, Virginia, I had a chance to get it in front of some of the regulars there.  Now, these folks aren't exactly strangers, and some of them I consider close friends, but I thought there might be a little more "honesty" than I get from my family.  We only had time to get in half a game (and that does play to my game length fears a bit) - but it was a pretty good success.  Everyone seemed to like it, my friend Paul Owen wrote a bit about it in his blog, and I received a very nice email the next day from Traci, one of our regular gamers about how much she enjoyed the game.  That was all a very nice boost of confidence heading into Unpub.

I've been spending the last few days making last minute changes - updating some cards, updating the board, adding some more dice to the game, so we're not just reliant on one set, etc.  I've never been one to sleeve the cards in my games - however I need to do that for Santa's Workshop since I'm just printing them out on card stock.  I'm on my 4th or so iteration of the "Coal Cards" in the game...and let me tell you unsleeving and resleeving 50ish cards that many times is a freaking chore.  Not to mention cutting the cards out.

Cards Cards Cards!  At this point, my next design will be card-free...

So, right now the major thing that I have left to do is a rules re-write to have a decent document to bring to the con, and to upload to the Unpub site.  However, I've taken a few steps besides just working on the game itself.  I've heard on a few different podcasts that it can be "unprofessional" to give out an obvious personal email such as "keith@gmail.com" (that's not my email address, by the way) - so I went to the effort to set up my own domain - "Fergusongames.com", and get an email address there.  Then I went and had business cards printed up with all the pertinent information.  I figure that the networking at Unpub will be at least as important as the actual game testing, so I thought I'd best be prepared.

For an extra fee, I was able to add my portrait to the card.  I think it turned out well.

I've got a note with a list of things to bring with me - I'm living in fear that I'm going to forget something important.  But really, I'm just looking forward to getting there at this point.  I've talked to Paul a few times, and I think the hardest part may be balancing demoing my own game, and play testing others.  The list on the Unpub site is impressive, and I want to play way more than I'll have time for.  Unpub has also set up a "Speed Dating" sort of thing for designers to meet for 10 minutes with Game Salute - I'm a bit nervous about that, but I hope to get some honest feedback, good or ill.  Well, that's about it for now...next post will likely come on the flip side of Unpub - if I rage quit this whole blog, you'll know things didn't go so well...