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 May 15, 2008
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Larry Levy
The collected columns of Larry Levy, former Saturday regular and current columnist at large. Here's what Larry has to say about himself:
Larry Levy has enjoyed board, card, and roleplaying games pretty much his whole life, but his enthusiasm for the hobby really blossomed when he discovered the world of German games in the late 1990s. In addition to playing every chance he gets, Larry has written articles and game reviews for Counter, The Games Journal, The Game Report, Gamers Alliance Report, and other gaming periodicals. He is an active participant in online gaming web sites, user groups, and blogs, and has conducted the Meeples Choice Awards for the Spielfrieks user group since 2003. Larry has also designed a dozen or so games, many of which require no special components. The rules for most of these can be found on the Geek and in the archives of the late, lamented Games Journal.
Larry has been an enthusiastic member of the DC Gamers since 2000. He shares his humble abode with his lovely wife (who will sometimes even play games with him!) and two rambunctious dogs (who won't).
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HeadlinesApril 20, 2008 - Larry Levy: Gathering Memories—TrendsApril 5, 2008 - Larry Levy: Coming Up for Air, Part 2 January 15, 2008 - Larry Levy: 2007 Designer of the Year December 22, 2007 - Larry Levy: I LIKE CHILI! December 8, 2007 - Larry Levy: An Early Thanksgiving November 24, 2007 - Larry Levy: Kitty Kaos November 10, 2007 - Larry Levy: I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday for a Hamburgum Today November 5, 2007 - Larry Levy: Diamonds are a Smuggler’s Best Friend October 30, 2007 - Larry Levy: It…Is…Balloon! October 27, 2007 - Larry Levy: Essen Radar Dippers October 18, 2007 - Link to Kulkmann’s G@mebox October 13, 2007 - Larry Levy: Things to Check Out at Essen |
Articles
Larry Levy: Gathering Memories—Trends
Well, it was another wonderful visit to The Gathering of Friends. I’ll get to my impressions on the games I played in a day or two, but first let me relate what I thought were the two main trends for this year’s con. 2008 was
The Year of the Dice
Dice get a bad rap because of their role in Roll ‘n Move games. But lately, we’ve been seeing more and more games that include clever and original ways of using dice. And this year, the concept seemed to hit critical mass. The dice were everywhere! Recently published games like Stone Age, Shanghaien, Six, Jamaica, Risk Express, and Airships used them in interesting ways. (By the way, I was very pleased to see Airships getting lots of play throughout the week. Maybe now that the RGG version is out, this game will start to get the attention I feel it deserves.) And dice were even more prevalent in the prototypes. I helped playtest some games for Alea and two of the three games I played featured dice in central roles. Dice in an Alea game—what a concept! Then there was Matt (Pandemic) Leacock’s dice game that was getting a huge amount of play; just about everyone is certain this one will get published. Brian Yu showed me one of his designs that was a lot of fun and will probably be appearing in a Mattel box sometime soon. Even Friedemann Friese had a dice game prototype and it was also very enjoyable.
Larry Levy: Coming Up for Air, Part 2
Here’s a continuation of my look at the games I’ve played over the past two months.
Die Wiege der Renaissance - This is an Essen release from a first-time publisher called DDD Verlag. The designers are Willfried and Hanno Kuhn, who have been sporadically creating games for 15 years. Probably their best known designs are An Den Ufern Des Nils, a farming game on the banks of the Nile, and the tower building game Campanile.
Wiege is a card/placement game themed around the events of the Renaissance. The theming is pretty much paper thin, but I still felt this was an intriguing and very unusual game. I don’t really have the time to describe the game in detail, but I hope to be able to play it again and write a full review.
In the game, the players play cards that enable them to place their markers on spaces on various events. For those who have played Sternenhimmel, the rules for placement vaguely resemble those in that game. However, the mechanics are such that the tension hits you from the very start, making all your plays significant. There’s also quite a bit more to the game, giving the players a good deal to think about. I found the choices to be involved and enjoyable.
Larry Levy: 2007 Designer of the Year
One of the first articles I wrote for Boardgame News (way back in December of 2005) described an award of my own devising, the Designer of the Year. The idea is to honor the designer who had the best body of work for the previous calendar year (as opposed to the many other awards recognizing the single best game). I wrote a similar article last year for 2006 and, since the number of death threats has been surprisingly low, I decided to do it again for the 2007 game year. By coming full circle, I thought it might be a nice subject for my first article as an At-Large BGN columnist.
Posted by Larry Levy on January 15, 2008 at 02:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: I LIKE CHILI!
I’ve been in love with games literally since I climbed down from the highchair. But the kinds of games that really grabbed me and changed my life, which we call Eurogames these days, I’ve only been playing those for less than ten years. Still, that’s enough time to figure out one’s likes and dislikes, particularly for someone as introspective as I am, who is also in the habit of writing about those preferences every couple of weeks. So it’s pretty surprising when I discover something new about my tastes in gaming.
The subject of this revelation is variety, which is also where the title for this column comes from. I fondly remember one of the Ziggy cartoon strips from about 20 years ago. After a typical series of stressful occurrences in his life, the little Everyman muses in the last panel, “I know that variety is the spice of life, but who ordered chili?”
Well it turns out, I did. It’s no mystery that I crave variety in most aspects of my life, including food, books, and music. (Thankfully, that doesn’t extend to women, as my wife and I just celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary.) And I definitely prefer a wide variety of gaming. It’s very rare that our group plays the same game more than once in a session, and that’s just fine with me. If I really like a game, I might play it a half dozen times over the course of a year; if I’m insanely fond of it, it might get up to ten plays. But I’m not one of those who wants to play the same game over and over until I master it. And this is good, because there’s always too many new games that I want to try, feeding my love of variety.
But when it comes to individual games, I hadn’t thought that variety was that important to me. For example, I tend to avoid expansions, usually being happy with the original game that came in the box. I love Age of Steam, but until recently, the only version of it I had played was the original Rust Belt map. In contrast, I’ve seen Valerie and Dale play half a dozen expansions in one session. Nor have I played any of the many Power Grid expansions—in fact, I still don’t think I’ve played the German map that came with the game! I played with the Puerto Rico expansion buildings once, thought they were nice, but then went back to the basic buildings, which I thought were better balanced and gave me all the game I wanted. So for an specific game, variety wasn’t essential; if the game was good enough, I was very happy to play with the same basic rules each and every time.
Posted by Larry Levy on December 22, 2007 at 02:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: An Early Thanksgiving
Four of us got together the week before Turkey Day and played some terrific boardgames. It was one of the best sessions I’ve had in a long time and given the time of the year, I thought I’d share it with you.
Agricola
It seems to happen every year, or maybe even several times a year. A game bursts out of nowhere, from an unexpected source, and is suddenly being hailed by the lucky few who have gotten an early glimpse as the Next Great Thing. Caylus, Twilight Struggle, Age of Empires III, and Through the Ages all fit the pattern and all debuted in the past couple of years.
And now we have Agricola. A relatively unheralded design from tiny publisher Lookout Games, it finished second in the Fairplay poll at Essen and has garnered other-worldly ratings since the fair. People were literally begging for an English translation and the game swept to 750 preorders for Z-Man in an insanely short time. It seems we have another shooting star in the gaming world.
Unlike the other games I mentioned above, Agricola features a well known designer (well, AoE’s designer did have a reputation, but based on Drover’s earlier work, it was more of a negative factor to many). Uwe Rosenberg is best known for Bohnanza, but he’s also created such unique and innovative games as Schnäppchen-Jagd, Klunker, Mamma Mia, Babel, and Bali. However, since 2001, most of his output has been lighter fare, party games, and Bohnanza expansions. During his peak, I considered him one of the best of the German designers and unparalleled in his ability to think and design outside the box. One of the things that first attracted me to the game was a desire to see if Rosenberg could again design a great meaty game.
Before all this furor began, a friend who was going to Essen said he would pick up some games for the group, so I took advantage of this most generous offer and asked him to grab a copy for me. I figured it might take several years (if ever) for this game to be available through the Stateside online stores, so this seemed like my best chance to own it. Of course, I had no idea what I was going to do with a text heavy game containing 360 cards! My answer came soon enough after the rave reviews started pouring in: paste it up, son! About a dozen hours of work later (and thanks to the enormous translation effort provided by the saintly Melissa Rogerson), I had a version ready for the group to play.
Posted by Larry Levy on December 8, 2007 at 03:30 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Kitty Kaos
First of all, I hope everyone reading this had a warm and happy Thanksgiving, sharing time with friends and family. Among the many things I’m thankful for this year is the continued growth of my extended family of fellow gamers, as I continue to make new friends and acquaintances all over the world. It truly is a marvelous hobby.
I’m going to continue my look at the Essen designs with Filou. Here’s my four word review: Mostly harmless, mostly random.
What! You want more? Slavedrivers!
Okay, this is a bidding filler from Friedemann Friese, the Man in Green. The subtitle of this game translates to “The Cat in the Sack”, which is evidently the German version of the English phrase “a pig in a poke”. (The parallels between sayings in different languages and cultures are most interesting. Last year, we found out that the German equivalent of “a bull in a china shop” was “an elephant in a porcelain shop”. One wonders how these differences came about, particularly given the extreme scarcity of elephants in Germany.) Either way, the meaning is the same: making purchases sight unseen, which goes a long way toward describing the game.
Posted by Larry Levy on November 24, 2007 at 01:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday for a Hamburgum Today
Or, “Would you like an Agricola to drink with that?”
Designer Mac Gerdts says that the rondel isn’t a gimmick and could be the basis for many games. He certainly practices what he preaches, as it’s been a feature in all three of his published games, all of which have quite a different feel. Hamburgum is the first not to involve combat and is the quickest of the three. Antike and particularly Imperial have been huge successes—can lightning (and the rondel) strike thrice?
In Hamburgum, the players are trying to earn the most prestige by assisting with the construction of half a dozen churches in the city being played (either in the game’s title city or in Londinium, the 17th century name of London—Eggertspiele again gives us two games in one by the use of a two-sided board). Building churches costs money, so the players need to establish a financial engine. Building other structures in the city will help with the player’s renown as well.
The rondel works just as it does in the other games. There are eight options and you can move up to three spaces on the wheel for free; however this time, moving additional spaces costs you victory points.
Posted by Larry Levy on November 10, 2007 at 01:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Diamonds are a Smuggler’s Best Friend
The most innovative ideas in gaming continue to come from the smaller publishers, even some of the really tiny ones. Unfortunately, those same publishers are also the most likely to produce games that might require a bit of development. That’s the chance you take with a pig in a poke (or even a cat in a sack), but it does let you try out some enjoyable new things.
Crazy Diamond & Karatino (sounds like a bad seventies rock group!) is the first effort from Dutch designer Bas Kesting and spanking new publisher Spezet. The game actually debuted in 2006, but it seems the first that anyone had heard of it was at this year’s Essen. The strange sounding title comes from the fact that this is two games in one, with Karatino constructed as the thematic follow-up to Crazy Diamond. Crazy Diamond seemed more gamer friendly, so that’s the one we played last week.
Posted by Larry Levy on November 5, 2007 at 09:45 PM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: It…Is…Balloon!
I got to play a bunch of Essen games last Saturday and I hope to do the same next week. Rather than wait for my regular column and try to summarize all of them, I thought I’d dole things out in small portions. One of the games I played was Giganten der Lüfte and there’s been remarkably little written about it, so I thought I’d start off with a brief review of that game. Please keep in mind that I’ve only played it once.
Posted by Larry Levy on October 30, 2007 at 08:45 PM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Essen Radar Dippers
Are you sick of Essen yet? Good, because there’s still plenty more to talk about.
Despite the unprecedented pre-Essen coverage this year, there continue to be games that manage to surprise us when the fair opens. Maybe they were possible no-shows, or from really tiny publishers, or maybe they just managed to slip through the cracks. In a way, this is comforting—the potential for surprise keeps the four-day event fresh. Anyway, I thought I’d mention some of the games that slipped under the radar this year. I’ll also discuss a few of the games we did know about that have surprised me in other ways.
Posted by Larry Levy on October 27, 2007 at 02:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Link to Kulkmann’s G@mebox
For those of you who are new to Essen-watching, here’s a link to the website of Frank Schulte-Kulkmann. Every year, Frank prepares daily reports from the floor of Essen and they’re always entertaining and informative. He’s already posted two long articles and the fair hasn’t even begun yet! Enjoy!
http://www.solicitor.de/gamebox/index.htm
Posted by Larry Levy on October 18, 2007 at 12:45 PM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Things to Check Out at Essen
Once again, I will not be traveling to Essen (I’ve never been there and I don’t really have a burning desire to go), but I know a lot of people who are going. A couple of folks from my gaming group asked me what I thought would be some good, lesser known games to check out. I figured the best ones to look at are the ones that won’t be coming out from American publishers in the next month or so (apologies to my non-American readers for this chauvinistic view, but it’s just common sense for us). I thought this might be useful to others as well, so here’s the list (with commentary, of course).
Posted by Larry Levy on October 13, 2007 at 01:20 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Czech Mates
I’m sure many people assume that anyone who writes regularly about games is inundated with free review copies from publishers desperate for any words of approval. ‘Tain’t so, McGee. My output is about one tenth that of luminaries like Greg Schloesser and Tom Vasel, so very few freebies have found their way to my door. (And I’m just as glad that’s the case—I’d hate to feel obligated to try out a bunch of mediocre to poor games just because they were sent to me gratis.)
So it was a very pleasant surprise when I got a Geekmail about a month ago from Petr Murmak. Petr is one of the principals behind Czech Games Edition, the new company publishing professional productions of the latest designs to come out of the Czech Republic. He wanted to know if I’d be interested in receiving prototypes of the two games CGE will be selling at Essen this year. My response was an enthusiastic “yes”, so a couple of weeks after that, I was accepting a carefully wrapped package from a slightly apprehensive UPS delivery man (who was probably wondering what bizarre and illicit items could be arriving from that corner of the world). Both games were played last Saturday, so here’s an early look at these new arrivals.
Posted by Larry Levy on September 29, 2007 at 02:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: It’s Alive! – The Game that Rose from the Grave
Yehuda Berlinger hails from Israel and, like fellow gamers Mik Svellov (Denmark) and Mikko Saari (Finland), has the distinction of being the best known gamer from his nation. Part of that notoriety comes from being one of the founders of the Gone Gaming web site. He has also written numerous other articles, including a thoughtful series called “Ethics in Gaming” for The Games Journal. Many other gamers will remember his huge number of building variants for his beloved Puerto Rico.
Like many gamers, Berlinger dabbles in game design and he has spent some time trying to get one of his creations published. I don’t recall the design’s original theme, but when most folks saw it for the first time, it was called The Menorah Game, in which players tried to fill up their Hannukah menorah by collecting one candle of each color. Yehuda created and sold a small number of handmade versions of this, trying to get a publisher interested. Then he sent a copy to Jackson Pope in the United Kingdom, who had set up Reiver Games to publish his own design Border Reivers. Pope thought that the theme could be successfully changed by having the players be mad scientists collecting body parts. He agreed to make the game Reiver’s second product, releasing it under the name “It’s Alive!” Last week, we got to try out the suddenly ghoulish design—here’s how it went.
Posted by Larry Levy on September 15, 2007 at 01:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Interview with Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard
One of the most anticipated games of the next few months is 1960: The Making of the President. This is a card-driven game from Z-Man Games about one of the most notable Presidential elections in American history, the titanic 1960 battle between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. What’s got gamers salivating is not only the fascinating theme, but the fact that this is being widely viewed as the sequel to one of the most remarkable games of recent years, Twilight Struggle. I’m lucky enough to be good friends with the game’s designers, Jason Matthews (a co-designer of Twilight Struggle) and Christian Leonhard (who is making his designer debut with 1960). I thought I’d take advantage of my position to ask them some questions about the upcoming game. Here’s what they had to say.
Posted by Larry Levy on September 1, 2007 at 02:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Gulf Games Glimpses – Balam
As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, I was not the only BGN regular columnist attending the Gulf Games in Chattanooga. Frank Branham, Dale Yu, and Valerie Putman were all enjoying the festivities as well. For those of you who don’t know them, Valerie and Dale are absolute best buddies. In fact, at cons such as these, they’re pretty much inseparable, to the point that we’ve started referring to the pair as “Dale-erie”.
Anyway, on Friday night I’m wandering around looking for a game when the dynamic duo call out to me. Am I interested in being the fourth for their game of Balam? (Frank was the other player.) Now, I don’t know too much about this game. Most of my data comes from Alan How’s review of the game in Counter, where he expressed concern over the frequent and vicious twists of fate the game can randomly dole out. This has made me quite wary of the design, particularly since Alan is far more forgiving of this sort of thing than I am. Dale-erie assures me that there are ample ways to mitigate against this and that the game is worth playing. I accept this explanation and happily join in, not least because it’s a rare opportunity to play something other than yet another Age of Steam expansion with these two.
And Dale-erie was right. I still have misgivings on some aspects of the game, but Balam is indeed worth playing and I look forward to trying it again.
Posted by Larry Levy on August 18, 2007 at 04:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Gulf Games Glimpses – Der Markt von Alturien
If you believe games have an afterlife—and really, who doesn’t—then I hope there’s a special circle of Hell reserved for those that look like they should work, but don’t. I don’t mind designs that feature few decisions or tons of chaos—I just avoid them. But it’s really annoying when the rules include some interesting mechanics and innovative features and then the game just plays like crap.
All of this is a none too subtle introduction to a new game from Pro Ludo called Der Markt von Alturien. This is a redesign of a 1989 Wolfgang Kramer design called City, supposedly beefed up for the twenty-first century. City was Kramer’s paean to the roll-and-move property game genre. Just as Big Boss was Kramer’s twist on Acquire, City was his attempt to modernize Monopoly. Despite some interesting sounding ideas, City didn’t quite catch on. But there remained hope for the revised and much better looking 2007 version.
Posted by Larry Levy on August 10, 2007 at 02:00 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: Gulf Games Glimpses – Ticket to Ride: Switzerland
Recently, Days of Wonder announced that the latest game in its hugely successful Ticket to Ride series was going to be Switzerland, an expansion based on a design originally created by Alan Moon for the online version of the game. I figured I’d have to wait like the rest of you to play this—but Dale Yu had brought his homemade version (actually created by his brother based on the computer rules and graphics) to Gulf Games, so I got a sneak peek. With DoW’s kind permission, I thought I’d give you all a preview of this upcoming game.
Larry Levy: Gulf Games Glimpses – Before the Wind
My return to Gulf Games was just as wonderful as I had anticipated it would be. It was great seeing old friends and the gaming was terrific. In fact, I was able to try out enough new-to-me games that I don’t want to wait for my usual once-every-two-weeks rotation to talk about them. So I thought I’d post some impressions of the games I played as I got them down on paper. Hope you enjoy.
Before the Wind
Okay, let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way early. Yes, this game’s title is poorly chosen, since it’s about loading goods onto ships, not sailing them. Yes, the more sophomoric amongst us (present company included) are prone to alter these words to an activity associated with intestinal distress. Yes, one of the goods to be shipped is cheese, for God’s sake! Can’t we just ignore all this and cut to the cheese—uh, chase! Thank you!
Larry Levy: AoE3 and the Elusive Path to Greatness
Last week, I got to play the most ballyhooed game of the summer, Age of Empires III, for the first time. Your first thought is probably why it’s taken so long for this debut. Well, it isn’t a cheap game and I wanted to try before I buy. The more aggressive game buyers in my group have resisted for a number of reasons, mostly due to bad experiences with designer Glenn Drover’s earlier releases. That didn’t bother me, since so many of the people singing the praises of AoE are ones whose opinions I trust and who were similarly dissatisfied with Drover’s Eagle designs, but I guess my fellow group members were finding it harder to forgive and forget the man’s former design transgressions.
Anyway, one of the new members of our group showed up with the game and we all eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to try it out. We played a five-player game and, at the request of the game’s owner, used the variant where only the player attempting a discovery looks at the Discover tile. If the discovery is successful, he flips it over and takes his reward; if not, he replaces it, loses his force, and the only information the other players have is that the requirement for discovering that area is greater than the force that was used. This seemed more in concert with the game’s theme without the loss of too much information, so we agreed to use it. I see no reason not to play future games like this. We also discussed several other variants (I’ll touch on these later), but chose not to use them.
The game played well and everyone liked it. At two and a half hours, it was long, as advertised, but not excessively so, and the interleaved actions meant that the downtime was low, even with five. With experience, it shouldn’t be too hard to reduce the duration to a couple of hours. The scores were close, various strategies were tried (for the most part successfully), and the design seemed both well-crafted and balanced.
That should be the end of it, shouldn’t it? But this isn’t just any game. AoE is this season’s hot title, with gamers of every stripe singing its praises, and sky-high ratings on the Geek (an 8.3 average rating and a Top 30 ranking, despite fewer than 500 ratings). So the question isn’t whether the game is good; the question is if the game is great.
Larry Levy: A Spielfrieks Membership Drive
I’m here to ask you to help a worthy cause. I don’t want your money or your time. I just need your electronic presence. The Spielfrieks user group wants you!
Larry Levy: Another Reason to Hate Dice
I’ve spent more hours than I can count serving as the referee for numerous roleplaying sessions. Most of the folks I played with were highly superstitious about their dice. After a few crap rolls, they’d quickly switch to another one, hoping the new platonic solid would be more to the liking of the gods of fortune. It was a harmless fixation, but I enjoyed ribbing them for their irrational behavior.
Turns out they may have been right.
Larry Levy: Odds and Ends
A group of unrelated items this week, representing the random firings of my gaming neurons.
The Tao of Phoenicia
If you’re wondering how this game compares with its ancestor Outpost (as well as its half brother Scepter of Zavandor), check out this article by Brian Bankler, reprinted from his Tao of Gaming web site. Brian does an excellent job of explaining what designer Tom Lehmann changed and, more importantly, what he left out.
Son of Canal Mania
On a similar note, if you’re curious about the differences between the second edition of Canal Mania (which, like Phoenicia, just made its debut at the UK Games Expo) and the original, Geek user Dave Dudley gives a fine explanation of the Ragnar Brothers’ alterations here.
Notre Dame Rings a Bell
I got to play this last week for the first time since the Gathering. It’s still great, maybe even better than I remember it. The action zips along, with practically no downtime. The decisions are all small ones, but none of them seem easy. All four of us chose different strategies (either through choice or because the cards led us that way) and the scores were all relatively close. I can see this being a regular member of the rotation for quite a while.
Larry Levy: Meeples Choice Awards Under Way
Just a brief note to let you know that the Spielfrieks user group is conducting our Meeples Choice Award voting, the annual selection of our three favorite games of the preceding calendar year. Right now, we’re voting to come up with the 25 nominations for 2006. If you’re a member of Spielfrieks and you want to participate, head over to the Polls section of the user group and follow the directions on the six polls.
Larry Levy: A Pair of Second Chances
One of the things I try hard to do as a gamer is to play every new game at least twice. It’s just too easy to come to an incorrect conclusion about a game from a single playing. Given the number of new games our group plays, that goal isn’t always easy to attain, but I do my best to get it done.
Last week, I played two games and both of them represented second chances I gave to titles that were at least a little bit lacking in their first play. Did these games find redemption in their second time around? Or were my first impressions proven to be accurate? If you wish to find the answers to these questions, read on.
Larry Levy: Name the Nominees!
I’m posting out of cycle here, but we’re coming up on gaming’s big beauty contest, the SdJ. The nominations will be announced on Sunday, so let the rampant speculation begin! Which games do you think will make the final five? Consult your tea leaves, peer into the nearest crystal ball, and put your astrologer on speed dial—whatever it takes. Let us know what you think the choices will be and remember, given the unpredictability of the Jury, you probably have as good a chance to be right as anyone!
Let me start things off by giving my picks, along with some of my reasoning. The way I see it, there are two clear co-favorites. I’ll begin with those.
Larry Levy: My Favorites from 2006
During the first week of every new year, the gaming blogs are usually flooded with people’s Top Ten lists of the previous year’s designs. I don’t know how they do it. On January 1, I’m lucky if I’ve played half of the games on my “want to play” list from the last twelve months. But I’ve accepted this reality and embrace it. I’d rather wait until I’ve gotten to play all these desired games than come out with a list that reflects only a fraction of these titles. Thus, I bring you my top games from 2006 in the middle of May 2007.
For me, 2006 was quite a strong year. It doesn’t match the amazing uber-year of 2004 and it may fall just a bit short of the great two-year period when I first discovered German gaming (1999-2000), but it’s still well above average. It gave me one of my all-time favorites, four other excellent titles, and a total of almost two dozen notable games. It started out slowly, with a weak Nuremberg show. But the second half was extremely good, highlighted by one of the best Essens ever. If 2007 (which has also had a slow start) turns out to be as good as last year, I’ll be very happy.
Larry Levy: More From the Gathering—Looking Ahead and Looking Back
In my last column, I talked about the new 2007 games I had the chance to try out. Naturally, those weren’t the only new-to-me games I played. There were some prototypes, some games from last year that I got to play for the first time, even a few older titles. Here’s a rundown and, with any luck, the last Gathering report you’ll be subjected to until next year.
Prototypes
The latest published games were kind of disappointing, but the prototypes were numerous and excellent. For the first time since I’ve been going to the Gathering, I didn’t get to play all the ones I wanted; in fact, I didn’t come close. They were everywhere! Most of the ones I did play were very good and some were great, which is a continued good sign of the future health of our hobby.
I’m only going to discuss the games that I was told were definitely coming out later this year. The others could wind up to be vaporware or could change dramatically by the time they are released. Naturally, in most cases there are limits to what I can say about these games, but at least I can give you my impressions of them.
Posted by Larry Levy on April 28, 2007 at 12:30 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Larry Levy: What’s New From the Gathering
Well, the Gathering is finally over and, as always, I had a fabulous time, despite some personal mishaps. The number of friends I have made in my annual sojourns to Columbus continues to grow and this year I had the pleasure of adding Alan How and William Attia to that list. As anyone who attends conventions of any kind can tell you, it’s wonderful catching up with people you only get to see once a year.
I also had the chance to try out some of the newest games and I imagine that’s what you’re more interested in reading about. Overall, the Nuremberg games that made it to Columbus were a somewhat disappointing group. I got the impression that a lot of attendees felt the same way. Part of it was that a good portion of the new games just missed the Gathering deadline, so there was a smaller selection to choose from than is usual. But while there were few stinkers, there also weren’t too many games that got folks really excited. Much the same was true last year; fortunately the year was saved by a truly excellent Essen. Hopefully, the same progression will hold true this year.
For me, there were two obvious highlights of the show, so let me start with those.
Posted by Larry Levy on April 14, 2007 at 01:30 AM in Columnists > Larry Levy
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Left Behind in Columbus--Can You Help?
Sorry for the unscheduled notice, folks, but I need help from some Gathering attendees and this seemed to be the best venue for getting the word out. I left my camera at the Gathering hotel. I’m pretty sure I left it in the ballroom where we were playing games on Sunday night, after we got back from the Chinese restaurant. It’s an I2Zoom in a gray soft-sided case. I’ve already contacted the hotel and they haven’t found anything, so there’s a good chance that someone found it and kept it for safekeeping, rather than risk it being stolen. If anyone found anything like that on Sunday or Monday, could you please contact me? My email address is huzonfirst AT comcast DOT net. Thanks!
