Valerie Putman

This section contains the columns of Valerie Putman. Valerie will be posting her column on Sundays.

About Valerie Putman:

Valerie Putman grew up playing backgammon, Mille Borne, Pathfinder, and Clue with her mother, and chess and Dungeons & Dragons with classmates. As a teenager she tried to deny her true geek in order to fit in, but by college she was again playing games like Risk, Rummikub, and Magic: the Gathering. By 1994 board gaming was her primary hobby and her way to meet new people when she moved to Athens, GA for graduate school and to Columbus, Ohio seven years later for a job as a professor at a small, liberal arts University. Valerie now travels to board game conventions as often as possible to see the friends she has made through board gaming over the years, and, of course, to make new friends, too.

Valerie lives in Columbus, Ohio in the United States.

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Valerie Putman:  More Essen game impressions—the ones that got away

I need to write up my impressions of the games I played from Essen that I didn’t buy while they are still fresh in my mind, since I don’t have the game handy to look at as a reminder.  Here are the games that I didn’t buy and whether or not I regret it.

Shipyard Regret, regret, regret!  I assumed that since Jay already had this done and available at his booth at the convention that I’d be able to pick this up easily (or ask for it for Christmas from Amazon.com).  I’m hoping that there will still only be a slight delay before I get my hands on this one.  Are there a million bits?  Yes.  Can it be fiddly?  Yes.  Do the mechanisms sometimes feel a little forced?  Yes, there is no reason why walking in circles around a green circle gets you captains and shiphands and propellers, but walking in circles around a brown circle gets you sails, guns, cranes, and steam chimney thingys.  But it works.  It all works. 

I particularly like the mechanism used to determine which of a selection of actions you can choose in a turn.  You can’t choose the action you chose last turn—and in fact that tile moves out from under your pawn to the front of a line of tiles that work their way around a track.  You also can’t choose an action that another player’s pawn is standing on (though you can always spend $6 to take a 2nd action on your turn and there is no restriction on which action you take for the bonus one).  When you choose an action, you gain $1 for every pawn between you and the front of the line and an additional $1 for every 3 empty spaces on the track between that tile and the next one in line.  If you can’t visualize it, just know that you have to carefully time when you try to take different actions and you can be rewarded for choosing actions that are chosen less often. 

In other words, have a strategy, but be flexible.  Another way that the game rewards this mind set is by giving you 6 random goal cards for end game scoring bonuses.  You will only score 2 of them at the end of the game and about halfway through the game you need to discard 4 of them (locking in which 2 you will score).  In the first half of my game, I had my eye on which 2 I would go for and played my game accordingly, but if other players were inadvertently blocking my path, I had other options before I was committed to particular goals.  The game is meaty and thinky and good, good, good.

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Valerie Putman:  Back from hiatus--new Essen games

I took some time off from writing the column and in the meantime I’ve gone to Gen Con, Dragon*Con, Essen, and Great Lakes Games.  In the last week I’ve played dozens of new games.  I guess it’s about time to start writing up some early impressions of the new Essen crop.

Best Crop Evar So far this year I’ve enjoyed a higher percentage of the new games I’ve tried than any other year.  In part this is because the information available to us before the show was better than ever, but I also think that this Essen churned out a large crop of solid games.  In fact, I really don’t have a single “best of show” this year, but instead, over a dozen games that I am looking forward to playing repeatedly over the next few months.  What are they?

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Valerie Putman:  Old favorites with a new twist

Sorry it’s been a few weeks.  After the World Boardgaming Championships I turned right around and went to Gen Con and then followed that up with a trip to Dragon*Con.  Throw in some family trips and a kitchen renovation and, well...I’ve been busy!  I’ve already mentioned that one of the new games I played during these conventions was Reiner Knizia’s new take on an old game, Ra the Dice Game.  At Dragon*Con I also got to pick up Samurai the Card Game.  For some players, the reaction to these games has been “why bother, I love the original.” Others found something to love in the new game that was different from their long time favorite.  But what surprised me the most was that about 50% of the people (n = 100+) that I taught these new games to had never played the original games that they were based on.  For these players, new twists on old games like Small World, Steam, Ra: tdg, and Samurai: tcg introduce them to interesting and well polished game mechanics that they wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.

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Valerie Putman:  World (mid-Atlantic region, USA) Boardgaming Championships

This week I was in Lancaster, PA demoing games for Rio Grande Games at the WBC.  I didn’t play in any of the tournaments, but I still had a great time.  I got to hang out with great people and teach (and play a few) really great games.  Last week I wrote about the new games I’d be teaching, so this week I just wanted to update my impressions (and the general impressions of the people I taught the game to).

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Valerie Putman:  New games for WBC

I’m headed to Lancaster, PA this week for the World Boardgaming Championships.  I won’t be playing in the tournaments—while I find that kind of gaming exhilarating, it also turns me into a monster that makes little girls cry.  No, once again I’ll be playing the role of “Jay” at Café Jay.  In other words, I’ll be demoing the newest crop of Rio Grande Games.  Four of those games were new enough to me that I convinced our friends to give them a try this week so that I’d be ready to demo them.

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Valerie Putman:  Trash or Treasure

Between my trip to Berlin and Tyler’s trip to Origins, we had a few too many new games sitting around without proper homes.  Actually, there was a tub of games that we took when we visited his family at Christmas still unpacked and swag bags from several not-so-recent game conventions spilling over the top of the game collection.  Ok, let’s be honest, our downstairs living areas looked like they had puked games and game paraphernalia everywhere.

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Valerie Putman:  I Quit, You Win

You are crushing me.  There’s nothing I can do to come back from behind.  It’s all over and now this is kind of boring.  Can we quit and start again?  Seems like poor sportsmanship, right?  But this is exactly the mechanism I love when the doubling cube is introduced in backgammon.

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Valerie Putman:  Game Review, Eine Frage der Ahre

I have been a big fan of Jeff Allers’ series here on Boardgamenews—Postcards from Berlin.  When I was the Geek of the Week on BGG a few months ago, I picked Jeff Allers to be my successor.  It was only natural, then, to make plans to meet up with him for dinner one evening while I was in Berlin for the announcement of the Spiel des Jahres.  I’m sure glad I did, because otherwise I might not have been successful in my quest to track down a copy of his game, Eine Frage der Ahre.

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Valerie Putman:  Spiel des Jahres 2009 award ceremony

I’m…nearly speechless.  Hopefully you’ve already read Dale’s report of the SdJ press conference that we attended in Berlin.  I haven’t read it yet—I wanted to get my own thoughts down before I was influenced by his perception of the trip.  He tends to be more detail oriented than I am, so I suspect I won’t duplicate his report exactly.

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Valerie Putman:  Let the Conventions Begin!

The Summer convention season is upon us and I’m off and running.  Actually, this is a late start for me this year--I’ve had only one major gaming weekend (Memorial Day Weekend) since school let out and I was only able to pop in for a day of that.  This week I’m at Oasis of Fun in Atlanta, GA (an invitation event) and next week Tyler is gearing up for Origins.  Why am I not getting ready for Columbus, Ohio’s biggest game convention?  As it turns out, I will be in Berlin, Germany that weekend for the press conference announcing this year’s Spiel des Jahres.  In July I have a non-gaming event--10 days of animal behavior fieldwork in Arizona (earning that sabbatical!).  Then it is a busy August with The World Boardgaming Championships and then Gen Con--all while I’m having my kitchen remodeled.  Finally, I typically consider Dragon Con (Labor Day Weekend in Atlanta) to be the end of the summer convention season.  I’ll be there again this year--especially since I won’t be rushing back to classes when it’s over.  Here’s a look at what’s new at this summer’s conventions…

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Valerie Putman:  The 2009 SdJ Nominees

First of all…wooooohooooo and a snoopy dance!  As I’ve mentioned before, I have put a lot of time and love into Dominion and so, of course, I am most excited that it was nominated for the German Boardgame of the Year award.  I’ll be going to Berlin next month for the press conference where the winner will be announced and I am so thrilled.  I wish my Dad was here to celebrate with me—he was anxiously waiting for the announcement right along with me.  I know he’d be proud.

Ok, now that I’m done hooting and hollering (for now), let’s talk about the other nominees.  For one thing, this is the first time since I’ve started as a gaming “journalist” (emphasis on the air quotes) that I had heard of all 5 nominees when they were announced.  Not only that, but I had played 4 of them, owned 3 of them, and now, just a week later, I have played all 5 of them at least twice.  Also, I think they are all fantastic games (that I was really nervous we might be up against if we were nominated).  There isn’t a single “what the???” in the bunch.

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Valerie Putman:  It All Boils Down To This…

I tried Cutthroat Cavern this week—a monster slashing, backstabbing experience.  As we headed into the 9th and final round we did a quick tally of the points and we found that although some of us had killed quite a few more monsters than others, the final monster was worth so many points that whoever killed it would win the game.  We battled and fought and the monster had just a few life points left—the next player to hit it would likely deal the killing blow (which is typically the only thing that counts for prestige/victory points in Cutthroat Cavern)—and so we were faced with a situation where the random determination of initiative order was actually going to decide the entire game!

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Valerie Putman:  Backgammon

Backgammon is a sentimental favorite of mine—in fact, I list it as one of my top 10 favorite games.  Growing up, I played lots of Backgammon with Mom, especially when I was home from school, sick for the day.  Now that classes are over for the summer, I’m back in NJ for a couple of weeks—helping Mom go through Dad’s stuff, keeping her company, and then Memorial Day weekend we’ll be having a memorial horseback ride for Dad at the stables where he cleared most of the trails and volunteered as a handyman on the weekends for the last 25 years.  (The people at the stables are my parents’ equivalent of a gaming family.) While I’m home, Mom has pulled the Backgammon set back out for regular use.

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Valerie Putman:  Master’s Gallery (aka Modern Art: The Card Game)

It’s Modern Art without the auctions.  Hard to imagine, right?  It’s the exact same game released under two different titles at the same time with different art and a different box.  Confusing, right?  But is it fun?  Actually, it is!

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Valerie Putman:  Gathering of Friends, 2009

As I mentioned last week, my father passed away unexpectedly in the middle of the Gathering, so I was only there for a few days at the beginning and a few days at the end.  I also didn’t play that many games when I got back—it was more about being with my friends and feeling comforted.  But here’s a look at the games that I did play:

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Valerie Putman:  Gathering of Family

Last Saturday I should have been writing up my initial impressions of the games I had played so far at the Gathering of Friends.  Last Sunday my Dad should have been reading my Boardgamenews column, like he does every week.  But this week didn’t turn out the way I had planned at all.  On Saturday morning my father had a heart attack while driving on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, resulting in a car accident.  He was taken to the Cardiac Care Unit of the University of Pennsylvania hospital where he was kept in a coma while they assessed his injuries and tried to minimize any neurological damage.  I was able to make it to his bedside by Sunday afternoon.  Monday afternoon my father passed away.

After spending several days with my Mom and my brother, I did come back to the Gathering in order to rely on the support and comfort of my gaming family.  I’ve even managed to play a couple games—but I’ll write about them next week.

This week I would like to offer a special thank you to Jeff Anderson, Dale Yu, Brian Yu, and Henning Kropke.  They gave up a day of their Gathering to fly out to NJ to be with me and my family for my father’s memorial celebration.  I’d also like to thank everyone in my gaming family who sent their well wishes and embraced me with hugs and love when I returned.

I love you, Dad.
Valerie Putman

Valerie Putman:  Themed game night—St. Patrick’s Day

Last Tuesday our friends Erin and Ian came over for St. Patty’s day.  We made corned beef and cabbage in the slow cooker and Erin made some amazingly yummy homemade Irish cream.  All that was left for a themed game night was an Irish themed game or two.  Hmmmmm.  Age of Steam: Ireland would have been my first choice, but Erin isn’t an AoS fan, so I started searching my shelves for something else—maybe Leprechauns or potatoes or shamrocks would do.  Luckily I remembered that I had a very Irish game (or a very Irish theme slapped on a purely abstract game)—Tara, Seat of Kings, published by Surprise Stare Games in 2006.

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Valerie Putman:  Keeping Busy

Ok, so I haven’t been writing every week lately.  It’s funny, because I’ve been gaming more than ever.  I expect to have plenty to write about once the Gathering starts next month and then it will be convention season and I can get back to my Prose on Cons.  So this week is just a hodge podge of what I’ve been up to—mostly game related.

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Valerie Putman:  Your home vs. Their home vs. Public location

I’ve been lucky to have quite a few game nights this month—sometimes three in a week.  In one week I had a game night at my house, a game night at a friend’s house, and a game night for our local game club which is held in a public location.  It started me thinking on the pros and cons (no, not the Prose on Cons—that season is still a few months away) of game night location.

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Valerie Putman:  Hype saves you money

So this is going to be another one of my short posts with the intent to create some well-behaved disagreements.  Hype saves you money.  Discuss.

For starters, I will once again assert that the term “hype” is misused by most.  The dictionary would lead us to believe that hype is dishonest and originating from those who will profit from it.  Whether or not you believe that I am guilty of hype (covered in a previous post), hype is more often applied to any game that gets a lot of responses from the gaming public before it is published or widely available.  So those gamers who got their hands on a German Agricola and went through the painstaking process of pasting up their copies in English were often accused of hype even when they had no association with the game company.  I’m sorry, but to me that just sounds like petty jealousy.

But have you ever considered that “hype” or pre-buzz or whatever you want to call that excitement around a game that isn’t available to YOU yet but is being enjoyed by others is actually good for you?

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Valerie Putman:  In Loving Memory of Kevin Gonzalez

Over 30 gamers gathered today in Athens, GA to say goodbye to one of our own, Kevin Gonzalez.  At only 36 years old, Kevin lost a tough battle with cancer. His friends and family are going to miss him terribly.

Kevin was, as I wrote on Boardgamenews once, our Alpha Gamer.  We all met in a comic shop 13 years ago playing Magic and Kevin was the one that started sneaking in these crazy boardgames that he was reading about. 

Our group never suffered from the “what do you want to play” analysis paralysis.  We played whatever Kevin brought that week.  He was the embodiment of the “cult of the new” and he turned us all into cult members with his weekly surprises of something new to play.  Not only was I sad to leave Georgia when I finished grad school because I was going to miss way too many Tuesday game nights, but now I had to flesh out my own game collection which was missing way too many “must owns” because Kevin had been the one to supply them whenever we played.  But I never left the Athens Game Group...I’ve just had a long commute and I’ve only been able to make it 2 or 3 times a year.  I was sad to make the commute now for this reason.  It pains me deeply to think of a world without Kevin it it.

I’d really rather be gaming with Kevin.
Valerie Putman

Valerie Putman:  Free Labor

Boardgaming is a very small hobby and for many in the industry, it is a labor of love.  Every year at Origins, Gen Con, and Essen I see booths manned by the self-publishing game designers who are happy just to get their game out there and might, if they are lucky, break even.  Lucky for us hard-core boardgamers, those aren’t the only games available.  There are larger companies out there that publish high quality games—and I fully expect that part of the cost I am paying for the game is profit for the publisher (just as someone makes a profit for the groceries, gas, clothes, and other luxuries that I buy).  But even some of these larger companies survive because they are supported by fans who are willing to work for free as a labor of love.

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Valerie Putman:  is on Facebook

Lately I’ve enjoyed using Facebook to keep in touch with friends that I usually only see a few times a year at game conventions.  What do I like about it?

A lot of my friends update their “status” regularly.  For example, right now my Facebook status says, “Valerie Putman is writing her BGN column.” My husband and I each have Facebook applications on our phones as well, so when either of us updates our status, the other one gets a note.  It’s a nice way to keep friends and loved ones in touch with stuff that isn’t worth the interruption of a phone call in the middle of the day.  I have found that it also sparks interesting gaming conversations sometimes.  For example, I recently posted that “Valerie Putman is playing Android” and I got several responses asking me if I liked it.  (The answer is NO—but I think I need to play it again before I feel like I can get my head around it enough to give you a good reason why.)

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Valerie Putman:  Itinerary 2009

Would you believe that it is January 10th and I am already on my second trip of the year!  I spent the first weekend of 2009 in Nashville, TN celebrating Christmas with Tyler’s family.  (We played Nicht de Bohne, Dominion, and Rock Band.) This weekend is a more somber trip—my Grandmother and Grandfather each passed away recently (Grandpop in November and Nanness in December) and we are holding a joint service for them in Portland, OR.  The rest of the winter I shouldn’t be doing any traveling, but before long, it will be convention season again.  Here’s what I have planned so far for 2009.

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Valerie Putman:  Gone Christmasing

You might think that the holidays are over, but with a husband in retail, we have to wait until after January 1st before he can take time enough away from the store to visit family.  I am away this weekend celebrating Christmas with Tyler’s family and shirking my bloggy duties for the week.  My New Year’s Resolution is to do better next week.  This way I either accomplish my New Year’s Resolution and feel good about myself for the rest of the year or I fail quickly and don’t have to struggle with it for months!  (OK, that isn’t my only resolution.  I am thankful that my gym membership is good at any JCC in the country so I was able to log my 60 minutes on the eliptical machine today even though I am out of town.  Hmmm...maybe next time I can write my column while exercising!)

I’d rather be gaming!
Valerie Putman

Valerie Putman:  Thanks, Santa

This will be another short week as I am still with “family” celebrating the holidays.  I just wanted to mention a couple of games that showed up under Christmas trees this year that I’m really excited about.

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Valerie Putman:  Giving and Getting Game Gifts

The holiday season means something different to everyone.  For some people the season is all about shopping for, wrapping, and exchanging presents.  Tyler and I have chosen over the years not to exchange gifts, instead picking out something together like a new (video) game system or a fancy new grill.  I do exchange gifts with other family members and I always think of games, of course, both to give and receive.

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Valerie Putman:  Trying to go last

While I wasn’t thrilled with the new Essen release Cavum, it did have a game mechanism that I really enjoyed. Each player has 12 actions that they will take before the end of the round. On any given turn, a player can perform 1 – 4 of those actions.  Sometimes it’s necessary to take a turn doing 4 actions—because you need A+B+C to make D work and if tried taking a turn to just do A, other players will be on to you and your plans for B+C will be foiled before it gets back to you.  But the disadvantage of taking 4 actions in a single turn is that your turns will be over sooner if other players are just taking 1 – 3 actions each time.  As in many games, going last allows you to ensure that there are no spoilers.  The interesting dilemma in Cavum is deciding when it is worth it to blow 4 actions at once, knowing this will drop you out of the turn sequence sooner.

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Valerie Putman:  More new Essen games

I am keeping a running list from best to worst of the games I’ve played so far from Essen.  I’ve given comments on the entries that are new to the list and the entries that have moved up or down with additional plays.

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Valerie Putman:  Prose On Cons—BGG.con, 2008

I’m in Dallas, TX representing Rio Grande Games at Boardgamegeek.Con.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to update this post from Texas, but if you’re reading this, then you’ll have to wait until next week for more details.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Valerie Putman