Designing My First Game - Part 4

Alright, when I left off I had gone through the spring and summer making tweaks based on feedback at Unpub 4, and at our Mini-Unpub.  The fall brought two more events for me to showcase the game.  First was the "World Boardgaming Championships" (WBC) - which I've been attending the last several years.  In actuality, I hadn't really intended to promote Santa's Workshop here - but after our Unpub Mini, I was contacted out of the blue by a publisher, inquiring about my publishing plans for SW.

I sent him the information, and as it turns out, we were both planning on being at WBC.  So, I brought the game.  As it turned out, we never got it to the table, and based on the rulebook, the publisher decided it wasn't a good fit for his line.  We did talk about it a bit at WBC, and there was some concern about the theme and how well it would appeal to gamers. 

The next event that I did sign up for, was the Unpub room at Congress of Gamers in October.  I brought the game, and got in 3 or 4 playtests.  I got some great feedback from folks like Alf Shadowsong and TC Petty III.  I incorporated a few more changes, such as giving elves a bonus if they became fully trained - they could use less coal in the material rooms.  On the 2nd day I playtested again with John Moller  his wife Katherine.  They seemed to like the game...but one thing was becoming obvious...game length was an issue.  An average game was running close to 2 hours...about double what I wanted. 

At this point, I was sort of stuck as to where I wanted to take the game.  I decided to plunk some cash down and bid in the Jack Vassel memorial fund on BoardGameGeek.  For those that don't know - the fund was set up by podcasting guru Tom Vassel, in memory of his late son, Jack.  The fund is used to help gamers that are in some kind of need.  Literally hundreds of games - and other items - are put for auction.  So...how did this help me?  I decided to bid on the chance of having Geoff Englestein review my game.  Geoff hosts the "GameTek" segment on the Dice Tower, as well as having his own podcast - Ludology - with Ryan Sturm.  Geoff has also designed several games, inlcuding The Ares Project, Space Cadets and Space Cadets:Dice Duel (along with his children). 

I was lucky enough to win the auction, and was very excited to have Geoff look at the game.  True to his word, Geoff really went back and forth with me on the game, and gave me great advice.  Some major changes that resulted from Geoff's advice were getting rid of dice nearly altogether (the coal mine still uses dice), and changing the reindeer area.  I had heard from other folks that the reindeer track was "boring".  Geoff thought it would be great to see the individual reindeer named - so I did just that.  Now, each of the eight reindeer (yes, only eight - the legal issues of who "owns" Rudolph are a bit cloudy) get a point token at the start of each round (kind of like the buildings in builders hall in Lords of Waterdeep).  When you go to the reindeer stable, you choose which reindeer to feed - and you get the points for that reindeer, plus a bonus - for example, Dasher may give you fabric.  This really made the reindeer stable a much more interesting location.

Geoff helped point out a few other areas he thought were fiddly as well - I got rid of the requirement that on some gifts portions of the materials all had to be made out of either the "prime" material, or plastic.  I also undid a lot of the "extras" that I had added after Congress of Gamers - just too fiddly.  I also finally cut ties with the idea of "spells" altogether - the functions of those were largely taken over by the reindeer bonuses.  For giving coal to naughty kids, I just made that an option in the Assembly Hall.    One thing that Geoff mentioned is that he thought I had an idea that a publisher would be interested in - the mechanics just needed some streamlining.  I think I was able to do a lot of that with Geoff's input.  It took me a while to let go of all those dice - but I think it's a better game for it.  We talked about maybe having one die in the game, and different modifiers depending on which room you were using...but that adds to "cognitive load" - and for a game that I want to be able to pitch towards families...the less of that, the better.

The last thing for this particular blog entry I want to touch on is the problem of game length that I mentioned earlier.  It was becoming apparent that 12 game turns was too long.  I was enamored with keeping the "12 Days of Christmas" theme, but it really seemed that 9 turns was pretty optimal.  I also made other changes, such as giving players in a 4 or 5 player game only 3 elves vice 4.  Little things can build up.  One of the reindeer spots would give the player 2 untrained elves to use later that turn.  In a 9 turn game, that's 18 more worker placements - so I cut that back to 1 "super trained" elf.  As it stands now, the game plays in about an hour - maybe 1:15 for 4+ players - but I'm confident that if those folks played a 2nd time, it would speed up.  I was also able to keep the "12 Days of Christmas" theme by making days 4, 8 and 12 just "Santa's Inspection days" - i.e. not actual rounds where players placed elves (that was another great suggestion from Geoff).

Alright...that brings us almost to the current time...  The next big event was Unpub 5, and I'm going to detail that in a separate blog post.  Apologies for the wall of text in this particular post...

Designing My First Game - Part 3

Holy Smokes - the last entry was almost 2 months ago?!?!  Ok, I admit...I'm terrible at this blogging thing.  I had planned this out as a whole series...but I'm way behind - I want to write something about Unpub 5, which is already 2 weeks in the past...and Prezcon starts this week...so, I'm going to try and wrap up all of 2014 in this one post.

When I left off in Part 2, I was getting ready for Unpub 4, which was held in Delaware in January of 2014.  I previously had a 2 part blog on that - Part 1 & Part 2.  The long and short of it was that I got 4 playtests in that weekend, and learned some valuable lessons from my playtesters.  There were some unneeded complications in the game - primarily the players didn't like the "coal cards", in which they could cast spells - or rather, they didn't like the "mean" cards - which you could use to screw up other players.  They didn't really feel that was in the spirit of the theme - and there were some horribly unbalanced cards in there.

More sobering, however, was my 10 minute pitch to Game Salute.  This was something that they were offering every designer there - and though I didn't really feel the game was publisher-ready, I decided to take advantage, to at least get my feet wet talking to a publisher.  I spent about 3 or 4 minutes describing the game...and when I was done, I got compliments on one or two of the mechanics, but the rest of the talk focused on the theme.  They thought that the theme was sort of a Catch-22 - "gamers" would overlook the game, thinking it would be too light, and families would balk at spending a typical eurogame price (~$40), and if they did...they would probably be overwhelmed thinking they were getting a game their 5 year old could play.

So...while I was a bit disappointed in that, I decided that I would stick with the Santa's Workshop theme for at least the rest of the year as I further refined the game.  The first thing I did was take out all the "mean" coal cards.  That left just a deck of "positive cards".  That still seemed to fiddly, so eventually I get rid of the coal cards altogether.  I replaced the cards with a die roll at the coal mine which gave you certain number of coal.  Instead of cards that allowed you to cast spells, I had 6 specific spells that all the elves could cast - adding an extra seat, improving your material rolls, improving your assembly roll, improving your coal roll, adjusting the reindeer track, and allowing you to pick more gifts.  At first I allowed each spell to be cast once per game, but that changed to being able to cast each once per round - if you had the coal to spend on it. 

The players tableau...about Version 9.0 or so....

But how to model turning the coal in for naughty kids?  With the coal cards, you had the choice of using the spell, or turning it in for points.  I went through a number of iterations here.  For a while, you just turned in all of you coal on the inspection rounds.  Then I played with having people sort of "blind bid" with coal on the inspection rounds - whoever turned in the most got a bonus.  Talk about fiddly!  Then I hit upon the idea of having some of the gifts be for naughty kids...and instead of building the gift, you had to place coal on that gift.  I had slots at the bottom of the tableaus, 7 Wonders style for those gifts.  I thought that would be the answer for a long time...ultimately it was not.

In July, we had an "Unpub Mini" at our local game store - the Game Parlor.  I got SW to the table 2 or 3 times and got some more good feedback.  One fellow pointed out that the training, as I had it then, was sort of pointless - it took too long to train in materials for it to be worth much.  In other words, the turns wasted going to the training room, would be better spent just collecting the material.  So, I came out of that, having to adjust the training levels.  I also found that people hated the "0" spot on all the material dice.  They did not want to waste one of their precious actions on the chance of a 0 roll.

Santa's Workshop at the "Unpub Mini"

A couple of problems kept plaguing me.  I never felt I was able to get the "tension" right in the game.  As a worker placement game, there has to be some tough choices to be made in where you take your action each turn.  My problem was - it was either too light on tension...or too high - just by taking away or adding an additional space, really swung the tension levels.  I couldn't find a middle ground.

The other problem was with the gift scoring.  In the basic calculations of the gifts scores, fabric was worth 2, wood 3 and metal 4.  But this wasn't working balance-wise.  I eventually upped metal to 6 points, and adjusted the metal die accordingly - so all the dice would average about 3.5 points worth of material per roll.  And, as a side note - with 5 custom dice in the game (fabric, wood, metal, assembly, coal) - I found that people kept having a hard time finding the right die when they needed it.

So, I made a couple of drastic changes (or so I thought).  To fix the "tension" problem, I tried a few things.  At one point, I tried a "Power Grid" style mechanic of filling each room only so much per turn - so players would have to fight over the resources.  That was short lived.  I finally hit upon the idea of having coal also be used as "currency" in the materials rooms - the elves had to fire the furnace to power the tools.  In each room, I had different spots that cost different amounts of coal - but the more coal you spent, the more material you would typically get.  Part of this change, was making fabric, wood and coal all equivalent points-wise.  This meant I had to rework all the gifts and point structure.  That was a bit of work, but I think it was worth it.  This also meant that I reduced 3 dice to 1 - just a "material die". 

Ok...on second thought I'm going to end this blog entry here to avoid it rambling on for too long...  I will attempt to follow with Part 4 tomorrow.  My apologies for the lack of pictures, and not proofreading it too well...

Designing My First Game - Part 2

Alright then...back in Part 1 of this series of blogs, I described my motivations and interests in getting into the game design process.  Now what I want to do is retrace the specific design process, including various decisions I've made along the way. 

So...let me start giving a brief overview of the game.  Santa's Workshop is a worker placement style game, where your "workers" are a team of elves.  The elves can be placed in various locations around the workshop, and earn points primarily by crafting and assembling toys, but also by turning in coal for the naughty kids, and taking care of the reindeer. 

The first gift cards. Complicated with various colored letters & borders.

Gifts are built out of primarily 3 different resources - Fabric, Wood and Metal - each with a separate room to collect the material.  In the original incarnation of the game, players placed their elves in the material room and rolled a die for that material.  The game was designed so that fabric was the easiest resource to gather, wood a bit harder, and metal the hardest of them all.  This was reflected in how the scoring was calculated as well - in the formula I originally used, fabric was worth 2 pts, wood 3, and metal 4 points.  However, you can replace some of the materials with plastic (worth only 1 point), to more quickly build gifts.  The concept of being able to replace some materials with plastic was a key element from the beginning of the game.  I "borrowed" that a bit from the game Colosseum, in which you can put on Roman shows, but can accept a lower score for using less "resources" (in this case, gladiators, chariots, actors, etc.)  I wanted the player to have to make a decision on whether to try and churn through gifts rapidly or try and score as much per gift as possible.  Also, in the original versions of the game, there were completely optional components...for example, the player could choose to put metal on the electric train (for extra track).  So, not only was there components that could be replaced by plastic...but components that you could not build altogether.

In addition to the materials, when players had all the pieces of their gift, they had to go to the assembly room and roll another die to see how many assembly points they would get.  Larger gifts required more assembly points.  Originally, the assembly room was the only room on the board that a player could place multiple elves in one action.

The original tableaus - just for elf training.

Another key aspect of the game from the very beginning was the ability to train the individual elves.  This meant that over the course of the game, the individual elves would become unique as they trained in fabric, wood, metal and assembly - and so the elves were numbered.  It took an action to train an elf, so again the player is left with the choice of whether to use his actions to train or to just keep plowing ahead by gathering resources.

The reindeer stable was an outlet for the player to get points by different means.  Originally, it was just a scoring track, and every time you sent an elf to the stable, your marker would move up that track, which was added to your overall score at the end of the game.  The first player to the reindeer stable could also claim the first player token.

Stable in V2.0.  Diminishing returns as it was used

Lastly, was the coal mine.  In my original vision of Santa's Workshop, I envisioned the players trying to create finish their gifts, as they wreaked havoc with other players.  One issue with some euro games, is that it often feels like multi-player solitaire.  I wanted to have plenty of player interaction.  My inspiration here was the game Wiz-War.  So, at the "coal mine", I had a separate deck of cards.  Every time the player went to the coal mine, they could draw cards, and turn them in for coal points (i.e. supplying Santa for the naughty kids) or use the "spell" printed on that card.  Better spells were worth more coal points if turned in.  I had spells that would help you, mess with the other player, and even "shields" and "mirrors" that could block and/or redirect spells that were targeting you.

That first playtest down in Blacksburg went well.  It was a 3 player game, with myself, my wife and my friend Tom.  I certainly learned some lessons about how to phrase rules, and some text on the coal cards that didn't make sense.  And my wife and I brainstormed a lot on the ride back.  But by and large, it played pretty well for the first time.

The coal cards.  Lots of complex symbols on what could be blocked or "reflected".

My next playtest was over Thanksgiving with my family.  One thing I noticed was that the plastic option was not being used.  In one of the earliest "why didn't I think of that before", I added in the concept of "Santa's Inspection" - at the end of each 3 rounds, the player that had completed the most gifts in the preceding rounds would get a 12 point bonus.  That made it more worthwhile to complete gifts quickly.  I also tied in the reindeer stable to these days, and the reindeer points would be scored at this point as well.  Note that the first few locations on the reindeer track were negative, indicating Santa's unhappiness if you were ignoring the reindeer.

I playtested it with my regular Tuesday night gaming group, and got more positive feedback.  One woman, Tracy, who is normally pretty quiet and reserved, later wrote me a very nice email telling me how much she liked the game and that she would definitely buy a copy.  I was very flattered.

So here I was, barely 3 months into my first foray in game design, and I'm thinking I have a huge hit on my hands.  And then I went to Unpub 4, where a dose of realism set in.  More on that in the next installment....

Designing My First Game - Part 1

Well, first things first...I have not abandoned this blog.  I'm not sure I ever had a lot of readers, mostly some family and friends, but that's ok...and sometimes life just gets in the way.  Between work, and kids activities and vacations and actually doing fun things like playing games...sitting down and blogging tends to keep getting pushed to the back burner.

But I want to reinvigorate the blog with something I've been meaning to write about for quite some time.  I want to talk about what it's like to be a first time game designer, and what I've gone through and the lessons I've learned as I've attempted this endeavor.  This will likely take me a few parts to get through things...and will also be a continuing topic, as I'm still in the midst of designing my first game!  So, here we go...

So mysterious

The first thing I want to do is give some background as to my relationship with gaming.  I can remember enjoying boardgames even as a young child.  I remember begging my parents to play Candyland (yeah, I know...that was revisited upon me when my own kids went through the Candyland phase...).  I also recall Sorry being a favorite of mine.  (Wow...Sorry was first published in 1929...I had no idea!).  Mastermind was another one that I recall spending plenty of time with - I always wondered what the story was with the man in a suit and the Asian woman standing behind him.  Boggle and Yahtzee were perennial favorites at our annual Memorial Day camping trip.

Oh yeah...I had the red box!

About the time I was maybe 12 years old, my friends and I discovered Dungeons and Dragons.  That dominated our gaming for years, although we did play some more "advanced" board games like Risk, and then Axis & Allies, and my friend Tom even got his hands on a copy of the old Avalon Hill Civilization.  In college, I continued role playing, with D&D we moved to the Ravenloft campaign, and from there into Vampire:The Masquerade.  We even ran a Star Wars campaign or two. 

Wait..what kind game is this?!

After college, my gaming tapered off for a while as I sort of did the "normal" things that single guys in their 20's did.  But a couple of colleagues from work - Grant Greffey and Paul Owen - drew me back into the world of gaming.  I think at my first "game night" at Grant's house, we played China, followed by Puerto Rico.  Puerto Rico, specifically, just blew my mind.  After that, I would game every so often with these guys, and they would introduce me to more and more games - some miniatures games as well.  At one point, they were discussing a convention that they attended - Prezcon.  My friend Brian and I decided to take the plunge and find out what this gaming convention was all about.  We had an absolute blast - got crushed when we sat down and played Britannia, but the whole event was great, and we've been going back every year since. 

I think it was my 2nd year at Prezcon, and Paul O. surprised us - or at least me - with the fact that he brought a prototype he had designed to pitch to some of the publishers that had booths at Prezcon.  Defying most advice I've heard since, he was successful by just walking up "cold" at the convention and pitching his game.  Trains Planes and Automobiles was picked up by Blue Square Games (a subsidiary of Worthington Games).  After Paul had his game published, he was tending to meet other game designers and publishers at conventions - often at the World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, PA.  As a consequence of hanging out with Paul at the Cons, I also met many of these people, and started to get a peek into the inner workings of boardgame design.  And that, I think, is what caused me to get the bug to design my own game.  I was caught up in the creativity and exchange of ideas that I was witnessing amongst these various designers.

So, finally, that brings me to the point where I had decided I wanted to try my hand at this whole game design business.  Where to begin?  Well, I decided that the best thing to do would probably be to emulate Paul a little bit - make a game that was family friendly, and not overly complex.  The fact that I have 2 younger kids also played into this.  I can't pinpoint exactly when or what triggered my idea for the theme...but at some point I hit upon the idea of "Santa's Workshop", where players would control teams of elves building gifts for gifts.  In the debate of starting with theme vs. mechanics, I'm pretty sure I fall squarely on the side of theme first.  Now, once I had the theme, I knew it was going to be a worker placement game of some sort.  That's probably my favorite game mechanic, and it just seemed to fit with the idea of controlling a bunch of elves in their flurry of activity around Santa's workshop.

So...I had a basic idea for theme, and roughly an idea of the main mechanic - worker (elf) placement to collect materials and build gifts.  This was probably early 2013 or so.  I spent a lot of time just "percolating" on the idea in the back of my head.  At one point I started a Word document where I just entered a bunch of ideas for the game.  I think I even described the game to a few folks, including Paul to see what they thought of the idea.  But...and I think this is probably the biggest initial hurdle for a new game design - especially if it's your first design - I hadn't actually made a prototype. 

The first prototype...I didn't even use card stock! *gasp*

What actually kicked me in the pants to finally make a prototype is that I wanted to attend Unpub 4, and I needed to have an actual game to do that!  As it turns, out, looking back over old blog posts, I already did a rather thorough post on the motivation for making a game, making that first prototype, and the initial playtest I had.  I'll refer you there for some more detailed info.  What I really want to get across here, though, is sitting down and making that very first prototype is a huge hurdle to clear.  It's one thing to have it all sketched out in your head, or even on scrap paper, but sitting down and trying to make something that actually resembles a board game is, I think, that moment when you're committing yourself.  Then you really have to figure out how you're going to lay things out, what you're going to use for components (if you're like me, you have plenty of games to "borrow" from, initially), and things like what computer program(s) you're going to use.  It's all a bit daunting, but once you've done it, I really think that gets the ball rolling on the meat of the design process.

PowerPoint...my old nemesis friend...

In my case, I just went with what I knew.  I used Microsoft PowerPoint for almost all the "paper" components - the board and the cards.  PowerPoint works well for cards, I think...I can fit 8 standard sized cards per PowerPoint slide.  Here's a tip for cards, by the way, which I didn't really figure out until...oh...about 8 months after the fact.  I have a bunch of "slides" with the faces of all the different cards.  There's one slide with the back of the cards.  I'll print the faces, take the paper, put it back in the printer upside down, and then print the back side, however many times I need.  That's all well and good...what I had been doing is delineating the cards on each slide with black lines...one "horizontal", and 5 "vertical"...those would the lines where you cut after the sheets were printed out.  I had the "cut lines" on both on the face sheets, and the back.  Since, inevitably the two sides won't line up perfectly...there was always a little bit of a black line one side or the other.  It *finally* occurred to me that I don't need the cut lines on both sides!  <HeadDesk>  In any case...PowerPoint works less well for the board, as you have to try and line things up across slides.  It's a bit of a pain.  I know a lot of folks use Photoshop or the like...I haven't really settled on anything different.  Since I started Santa's Workshop in PowerPoint, that's what I'm still using.

Alright, I think that's enough for this post.  I didn't really get into any of the specifics for Santa's Workshop yet, I'll start hitting on that in the next installment.  I want to cover what my original vision was for the game, how those initial playtests went, and the various changes I've made (and un-made) in the last year since I first got it to the table.  Please stay tuned...

Top 20 Boardgames

Once again, I'm going to take inspiration from my friend Paul Owen - who listed his Top 20 games as part of the Dice Tower's "People's Choice Top 100" initiative.  As you might suspect, this was a tough exercise, and I'm left with the nagging feeling that I've left off something obvious.  At the bottom of the list I'll talk about a few games that didn't make the list, and a few that I think will probably be on there in the next year.  My list isn't in any particular order (it's hard enough to come up with the Top 20, let alone rank them!)  However, I'll start with a game that's been a favorite of mine for a few years now...

Can you hear the war drums?

1)  Conquest of Paradise - When I first played this at Prezcon 5 years ago, the theme immediately grabbed me.  There are a million games about medieval Europe, or "trading in the Mediterranean", or WWII - how many are there about the Polynesian expansion across the South Pacific.  Well, to my knowledge, exactly one.  There is a large luck element to the game based on tile drawing...which normally would drive me nuts, but it fits the theme so perfectly here that it works great.  I'm looking forward to the deluxe reprint coming from GMT games.  

2) Axis & Allies - A mainstay of my youth, this is a game I still love.  It doesn't get to the table much anymore, but I would love to pull it out soon.  I've linked to the original here, but I'd love to play the giant combined game of the newest Europe and Pacific versions. 

3) Ticket to Ride - The classic gateway game, great to teach to non-gamers, and interesting for veteran players alike.  I always look forward to a new map, and am eager to break in my copy of the Anniversary Edition.

4) Stone Age - This is a great example of the worker placement genre.  If it's not a gateway game, it's the next step up, and this is another I've introduced to many non-gamer.

5) Power Grid - In my opinion, this is one of the absolute best games to be found.  Great player
interaction via the bidding mechanic, and a fantastic market mechanic, which drives other decisions in the game, such as playing for turn order.  I keep buying all the new maps...haven't played them all yet, but I keep buying them!

6) Hansa Teutonica - This game is a favorite of my group, and is always a fallback option if we can't decide on something else.  Maybe the best example of direct player interaction in any euro game.

7) Love Letter - My group, like many others has been caught up in the social/hidden role deduction craze.  This was a tough choice for me, because there are a couple of other good ones (see below), but I chose Lover Letter due to it's simplicity...and the fact that I have the Japanese-themed version, which lends itself to terrible accents when we play.

Alright, who's got the builder lord?!?!

8) Lords of Waterdeep - Perhaps the best entry-level worker placement game on the market.  Once you get over the slight hesitation from non-gamers on the D&D theme, it always goes over great.  Replacing those cubes with "DnDeeples" is nearly a must, though.  Also, the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion provides deeper gameplay for experienced gamers.



9) Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery - A smash hit from Gale Force 9!  The combat is very simplified, but the game shines as a social backstabbing experience.  I won't forget one of our first games when Paul asked me to lend him influence for a scheme, and I declined.  He immediately followed with "How about you loan me that influence or else I'll direct this scheme against you!"  Wait-what?!?!

10) 7 Wonders - Great game with it's card drafting mechanic.  The first run-through with non-gamers can be confusing, but they soon get the hang of it.  Also a good pick for a larger group, as it holds up to 7 players.

It was a good death.  A tactical death.

11) Caylus - Another worker placement, but decidedly NOT for beginning gamers.  With the house-building mechanic that inspired Lords of Waterdeep, Caylus can be decidedly more cutthroat. 

12) Village - Another worker placement game, with the novel idea that your meeples grow old and die - where there deeds land them, in the Book of Record, or the unmarked graves, determines who wins and loses.

13) VivaJava:The Coffee Game - This game about making the best coffee blend has several fantastic elements.  First, it can hold up to 8 players...it's very rare to have a game that can hold that many and still play relatively quickly.  But the main thing I enjoy about this game is the semi-cooperative aspect, while still being a competitive game. 

I can hear the Imperial March

14) X-Wing Miniatures Game - I'm a child of the '70s, I grew up with Star Wars posters on my wall, and collected all the Kenner action figures.  This is a no-brainer for me, for nostalgia's sake.  But, beyond that, it's a great game.  Pre-painted ships (and good pre-paint at that), relatively simple rules - this is a winner.  It just needs to get to the table more often.  I haven't used many of the ships I've bought.  Yet I still keep buying them.

15) The New Science - I love the theme in this game, and mechanism where you publish for points...but allow your opponents to then build off your work, is fantastic.

16) Lost Cities: The Board Game - This is probably my shakiest entry on the list.  I felt I needed a 2-player, and was going to the list the original Lost Cities, but this board game version expands the same mechanic to 4 players, while also being good for 2 players.  Still...I can see this being knocked off fairly easily.

17) Founding Fathers - A "euro" game about the drafting of the United State constitution.  What's not to love?!  This is my favorite among the "play a card one of several different ways" games - I love the theme, and once again this is an excuse for my group to use terrible accents.

18) Wallenstein/Shogun - These are the same game...do you prefer medieval Germany or medieval Japan?  The cube tower used to resolve battles makes this game, but the basic euro mechanics are solid.  For Wallenstein, I prefer the 2nd edition which incorporates some of the changes introduced in Shogun.

In the Game of Thrones (2nd Edition), you win or you die.

19) Citadels - I've literally had people throw their cards at me after I've assassinated them.  Enough said.

20) Game of Thrones 2nd Edition - Fantastic source material, fantastic "dudes on a map" backstabbing gloriousness.  Winter is coming.

Others in Consideration

So, what didn't end up on the Top 20, that may be a bit of surprise...and what did I seriously consider putting on there, that may be there next year (or next week).

Agricola - I like Agricola quite a bit.  But I still don't know the minor improvement or occupation cards that well.  Also the tight worker placement sometimes breaks the theme for me.  If Paul is plowing his field, why does that stop me from plowing mine?

Puerto Rico - Another absolute classic, which I still enjoy playing.  I feel like this game has a little bit of "you should know exactly what to do based on what happens before you, and if you don't do that, you've screwed up the entire flow of the game" thing going on. 

Memoir '44 - Great game that I learned to enjoy once I got past the "you can only move certain troops if you have the right card" aspect.  Just doesn't make it to the table enough right now.

Pandemic - I wanted to include a cooperative, and my wife and kids love this game.  Truth be told, I've gotten a little burned out on it.  And if I'm going to pick a coop, it's likely to be...

Robinson Crusoe - I've only played a handful of times, and the only reason it's not on the list is because I need to play it more.  But I can tell you that I already think it's the best coop I've ever played - with the different scenarios significantly altering game play, it doesn't have that "sameness" after repeated plays.

Brew Crafters - I'm highly anticipating receiving this game when the kickstarter delivers.  This is my Agricola-killer.  Unless I'm completely wrong, I would expect this in my Top 20 by this time next year.

Russian Railroads - Heavy euro worker placement.  The theme is a bit pasted on, but there's a lot going on here, and I like it!

Panamax - I have all of one play, but I really liked that one play.  Definitely need to get this to the table more before I render a final verdict.  There's some concern about some of the hidden goals being overpowered, but overall I'm really liking what I've seen.

I think that's about it...I could keep listing game after game.  As I sit here, I realize I didn't think about coop w/ trailer like Shadows Over Camelot or Battlestar Galactica.  Aaargh...too many tough choices!  There's only one thing to do...play more games so I have more experience to draw from!

WBC 2014 Recap - Part 2

Well, I'll just pick right up from where Part 1 left off.  After another night of not enough sleep, Saturday morning was upon us.  Saturday is typically "Conquest of Paradise Day" for me, and this was no exception - sort of.  The 4th and final heat was at 9:00 am that morning.  Since Brian had arrived late, this was his 1st chance at CoP.  Due to my victory in Heat 2, I was in the semis, but I always like to play, so I joined in Heat 4 as well.  Randomly drawing Samoa again, I had fortunate tile draws.  The random effects took their toll a little bit, and the Hiva and Raitea players used them against the Tonga player and myself.  The only unfortunate part of the game was that the Tonga player misinterpreted some rules, and got a little perturbed about that, as well as thinking that the rest of the table was picking on him even when he was down.  I don't think that was true, but he had a little bit of a sore spot with the game, and that made things a bit tense.  In the end I pulled out the victory after conquering some of the native inhabited islands to the west.  This got me the #1 seed in the semi-finals.  I had my choice of homelands, so I picked Samoa, which had treated me so well in the tournament.  The semis consisted of 3 4-player games.  The 3 winners and the "best" 2nd place would advance to the finals.  I was a bit chagrined when the gentleman from the previous game was assigned to my table again, but he seemed to have gotten over the earlier game, and had a find attitude this time around.  Brian was assigned to my table, and our 4th was a young lady who's name I don't remember (I wish I hadn't lost my notes).  I thought I had another good game going, with several good island pulls.  The Tonga player and I were clearly in the lead, and Brian tried his best to convince the young woman that they should focus on us, but she was intent on attacking Brian.  That effectively took the two of them out of the game.  I was preparing to attack Tonga, but I waited too long.  By virtue of good island pulls and Arts&Culture cards, he declared victory.  I was 4 or so points behind.  One of the other games had to go to a tie-breaker, so that meant I wouldn't get in the final.  My reign as defending WBC CoP champion had come to an end.

Saturday tends to be full of semi-finals and finals, so getting into new games becomes somewhat of a challenge.  I decided to go to the demo for Concordia, a game which Paul had picked up in the vendor area based on reputation.  While waiting for the demo, we watched a bit of the Memoir '44 mega-Overlord game, which was simulating the entirety of the D-Day landing.  There must have been 16 or so players, presided over by designer Richard Borg.  I had the pleasure of chatting with him for a few minutes - he was very nice, and opined that the mega-Overlord scenario was probably a "bit much", but fun for a convention.

I had some trouble keeping my attention during the Concordia demo...lack of sleep was catching up to me, but I decided to jump in the heat after the demo anyway.  My opponents were all more experienced, but I think the most experienced had played maybe 5 or 6 games.  My big problem is that I really didn't understand how scoring would work - and scoring doesn't happen until the game is over.  Like many euros, you can score for a variety of things.  I just didn't have a coherent plan on what to focus on, but even though I finished 4th, my broad approach didn't land me too far behind the leaders.  I don't know what to think of this game...I didn't love it, but I would be interested in trying it again.

Brian had gotten himself into the Tigris & Euphrates semi-finals, so Paul and I met in open gaming for a few rounds of Confusion:Espionage and Deception in the Cold War.  This is a great 2-player game that doesn't get to the table often enough, where you don't know how your own pieces can move...thus your opponent has to say "yes" or "no" when you attempt to make a move.  The objective is to get the briefcase, and carry it off your opponents edge of the board.  Our first game was quick, with Paul essentially bum rushing the briefcase off my side for the victory.  Our 2nd game was much more "tactical", though Paul still won in the end.

Brian re-emerged, his dreams of glory in Tigris & Euphrates smashed, and then we were joined by Bryan Fischer and John Sizemore of Nevermore Games.  We broke out Thunder Alley, a NASCAR inspired racing game.  In Thunder Alley, you play a team of cars, and you use cards to move either your single card, or the entire row of cars that your car may be linked with.  As you play cards, damage will build up on your cars, eventually forcing a pit stop.  The winner isn't necessarily who finishes first, but who accumulate the most points among his cars for things like leading laps.  I liked the game, but I didn't love it.  It was a bit more fiddly than I hoped for, and there was a certain luck of the cards element.  Someone made the comparison to Formula Motor Racing, and I think that was apt.  I would play it again, but I think Formula D remains my car racing game of choice.

Bryan and John took their leave, and Paul taught us Pergamon, a game about digging for archaeological treasures, and then displaying them in a museum.  By this time, lack of sleep was really catching up to me.  I liked the game well enough, better than Brian did...but would certainly like to try it again when I'm more awake.

Sunday morning we got in a couple more games in open gaming.  Brian Goodman and Dave (gah!, what's Dave's last name) joined us for a game of Mag Blast.  This is a sort of tongue-in-cheek game about battling each other's space fleets.  The unfortunate part is that like Bang!, there is player elimination, and I was eliminated early.  After that, we got in one more 3-player game of Villainous Vikings, and then called it a trip.

So, another WBC in the books.  But what does the future hold?  The big announcement was that starting in 2016, the WBC is moving a little bit west, to Seven Springs Ski resort.  As you might expect with gamers, there is no shortage of opinions on this...many negative, and many positive.  There are some legitimate complaints, and some not so legitimate ("It's no longer an east coast convention!"  Really...it's moving an hour or so west...it's still east of Pittsburgh for crying out loud). 

The key for me is that the Lancaster Host is simply a dump at this point.  The management doesn't seem to care about the place...my favorite this year was the sign on a table in the foyer advertising "Sign up now for low 2013 membership rates!"  The food...never great quality...seemed a notch below this year.  And the surrounding area isn't much better.  I've stayed in 3 different hotels now - the "Rodehouse Inn", the Continental across the street, and this year, the Ramada just down the street.  All 3 of them are marginal quality at best.  I'm happy to try out Seven Springs...I think the drive will be a little longer, but an hour more at most.  But to be honest, I have limited time and money for gaming conventions.  Prezcon is a must for me every year, but I'm starting to hear the siren calls of Origins and GenCon.  I would like to experience both of those.  I may have to make a decision in the next year or two on whether to skip WBC or not.    A lot of that may depend on where I am in further development with Santa's Workshop, and a couple other game ideas I have.  We'll see...

One more year...

WBC 2014 Recap - Part 1

Unfortunately, real life has gotten a little bit in the way the last month or two, so I've not picked my blogging back up at the pace I would like.  However, things are getting back to normal, so I hope to do this a little more regularly.  I did manage to squeeze in time to make the annual pilgrimage to Lancaster, PA for the World Boardgaming Championships from Thurs-Sunday, though.  I took some notes - but have since lost those, and I didn't do a good job with picture-taking this year (I will be glad to see Summer 2014 come to a close...it's been challenging, and I've been off my game).  So, I'm going to do my best to give a brief recap, with some thoughts on WBC in general. 

My friend Paul Owen and I headed up early Thursday morning.  We got there around 10ish, and headed in to the Lancaster Host.  I thought about playing Stone Age, however I decided to play Thurn & Taxis, which I don't get to pay often...in fact my last play was last year at WBC.  I was seated with 3 veterans, and had to ask for a quick rehash of the rules, which they provided.  The game went fairly quickly...it ended about a turn or two before I was ready and I finished in last place...however it was very close with a 5 or 6 point spread from first to last.  I was pleased with how I fared against 3 players who obviously were much more familiar with the game than I was.  Next up for me was a round of 7 Wonders.  GM Nick Ferris has a great randomizing method to seat people with unique cards he hands out to everyone, calls a row and column and everyone had their table and seat assignment.  My three opponents consisted of 1 fellow who was pretty experienced and 2 other folks who were fairly new to the game.  We played 2 games in an hour, and I finished 3rd in both, for an overall 3rd place.  In both games, I was hampered with lack of certain resources. 
 


Paul didn't advance either and I tagged along with him to the Lampeter room where he was going to engage in some Wooden Ships & Iron Men.  I took the opportunity to relearn this game, and played against one of the experienced hands in a frigate duel.  As expected my experienced foe got the upper hand, I didn't adjust to the wind very well...but his hot  dice luck didn't help any.  Next up I took part in a heat of Navegador...another game I don't get to play often enough.  I concentrated on building churches, but my lack of investing in any kind of ships in the 2nd half of the game caught up to me in the end.  Still, I finished in 2nd, about 8 or so points behind the winner.  At 9:00 that night I participated in my first heat of Conquest of Paradise, which had been expanded to 4 heats this year.  As at Prezcon, we were playing with the advanced rules and random events.  My game went very quickly...we were done in under an hour.  As Samoa I started last, and my 3 opponents each found 2 or more islands on their first turn.  I only found found one, but I consistently found islands over the next several rounds, and was able to expand my Polynesian empire for a quick and bloodless win (there was no combat in the entire game). 

After that, Paul and I wen to the open gaming area where we found Peter Gousis and his friend Jerry and played a game of Tobago, a clever little game about finding treasure, where the location of the treasures is narrowed down in a sort of logical card progression by the players.  Peter had come to our Unpub Mini and I was glad to catch up with him.  After that we all joined several other players, including T.C. Petty III for some Coup, followed by Panic on Wall Street.  With Coup, we played with the Reformation expansion, where players are assigned to the Catholic or Protestant faction, and can't act against someone in their faction...although you can change someone else's faction.  It adds another twist to an already fun hidden role/deduction game.  We had played Panic on Wall Street last year, and I was kind of "meh" on the game, though as I recall I was very tired at the time.  This time we also started late, but I got into the game more...and manged to eek out a win as a manager by riding the high-risk shares. 

Friday morning came too early (all the mornings seem to come too early at these conventions...)  I briefly toyed with the idea of playing in the Circus Maximus heat, but decided to wait for the vendors to open at 10:00.  I made a beeline to the Stronghold Games booth in order to pick up the Die Fighter expansion for Space Cadets:Dice Duel.  (About a week later I had a package arrive at home...the copy of Die Fighter that I had forgotten I had pre-ordered...DOH).  I picked up a few other things as well - a copy of Caylus Magna Carta (the card game version of Caylus), Freedom:The Underground Railroad, of which I had heard many good things, and game called Quilt Show to use as a gift for a friend that is really into quilting.  I didn't actually sit down for a game until 1:00, when I decided to try my hand at a heat of Ticket to Ride.  I enjoy TTR but I haven't played in a tournament in years because it's so popular, and it tends to conflict with other things.  One player ran away with it at our table - I finished 4th...I might have finished higher but I knew I wasn't winning so went for the Hail Mary on the last turn and drew more tickets...none of them I had complete.  But I did get a set of translucent trains just for playing. 



There was another heat of Conquest of Paradise at 3:00, but instead I decided to help Paul with a demo of East India Company he was giving to a publisher.  Now, I hadn't played EIC in a quite some time, and was eager to see the changes Paul had made.  He had streamlined it by removing the dividend track, taking out the Caribbean, removing the tariffs, and eliminating the option of using wood to build new ships.  The demo went well, I thought, although afterwards, on the drive home in particular, we brainstormed some about the game.  I thought Paul had actually removed too much, and we talked specifically about a way to add the tariffs back in, and possible some changes to how the pirates work.  Now, I will also admit that I had an ulterior motive.  This same publisher had contacted me after our Mini Unpub, specifically about Santa's Workshop.  I had sent him rulebook, but he had contacted me right after we got to WBC to tell me that it wasn't what they were looking for.  Which is fine, I'm happy he looked at it...and did take the opportunity to get his advice for 5 minutes or so after the EIC demo was done.  I specifically wanted to get his feedback on the theme...which had really gotten a negative reaction from a publisher at Unpub back in January.  This particular publisher thought the theme may be a bit of a tough sell, but he didn't think it was necessarily a deal breaker.  So, I was happy to get some feedback.

About this time, Brian made his WBC appearance, and we just decided to hit open gaming.  Paul sat down to re-teach us St. Petersberg, and we were joined by a 4th player...who also wanted to teach the game.  Once we got started, it came back quick enough.  Our 4th player won, but I made a strong showing with a building heavy strategy.  Brian and I hit the vendors for a while, and I picked up a copy of Villainous Vikings.  We had seen a demo of this game last year at WBC when designer Jeremy Stoltzfus had brought his prototype to demo.  Victory Point games had picked it up, and I decided to get a copy, including a promo captain.  Brian and I sat down in open gaming to give a 2-player game a try.  Fortunately, Jeremy was a few tables over teaching some other folk, so we were able to get quick answers to some rules questions.  We had a fun game, but were thinking it would bet better with more than 2 players.  After our game, Paul joined us along with Bill and Laurie from Nomad games.  Brian had purchased a copy of Spurs from them earlier, and we broke it out. Set in the Old West, with just about every trope you can imagine packed into the game, this was probably the purchase of the con.  The best part was watching Paul and Brian "gunfight" by drawing bullets out of their bags.  Brian pulled out the victory, I was a few points behind in 2nd place.  The last game of the night was another round of Villainous Vikings, with Paul joining in for a 3-player game.  Paul ended up running away with the game, but I did think it was better with more players.

Well, I had intended to do one short recap of WBC, but I think it's probably better to break it up into two sections....so next up, Saturday & Sunday, plus general thoughts on WBC.