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Convention Report: Gencon 2006: August 10, 2006 - Part 3 (Day 1)
By Rick Thornquist
August 10, 2006
After posting part two of today’s report (on Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge), it was time to get together all the video I had shot and edit it together. Writing reports and doing pictures is one thing, but doing a video is completely different ballgame - especially when it comes to the time it takes to shoot, edit, narrate, etc, etc (especially when the computer keeps crashing). I finally finished generating the video and then started it uploading (which I knew was going to take a while) before going back to the convention center.
I headed towards the Exhibit Hall - my goal was to accost some of the publishers and see what they were showing and what they have in store for us. Today I caught up with two publishers: Days of Wonder and Mattel.
This is going to be a very short report for Days of Wonder, because I didn’t find out anything! When I visited them, they had copies of Cleopatra, Memoir ‘44 and Ticket to Ride - Marklin set up to play along with stacks of the rest of their line.
Earlier in the day I had tried to pry some information out of Mark Kaufmann about the ‘Bigfoot Game’ but he wouldn’t budge. I tried to get something - anything - out of him but he remained tight lipped. He did say that the news was coming, but we’d just have to wait for it.
I got to visit with one more company before the Exhibit Hall closed and that was Mattel. Surprised to hear that name? Well, Mattel does indeed have a presence here at Gencon. Their booth didn’t say ‘Mattel’, though, it said ‘Hyperscan’ which is a game console of Mattel’s that uses RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. The Hyperscan was there, behind glass, but most of the booth was devoted to showing off Mattel’s new German-style games - Desert Bazaar and Voltage.
Now this is a new thing for Mattel - not only the games are German-style, they have German quality components, they do not have a license, and they actually have the designer’s name on the front - Brian Yu. Surprising, to say the least!
About the games… Desert Bazaar is a medium-weight multiplayer game where players use resource cards to play tents on a board divided into hexagons. You get resource cards by rolling dice. This part of the game has a bit of a Can’t Stop aspect to it - you can re-roll the dice to get more resources, but risk busting and getting nothing. The tents score once a group of them has reached a certain size and you get points for the tents you placed in that group (there are other ways of getting points as well). Once the board is full some bonus points are counted for resource cards in hand and whoever has the most points wins.
Voltage is a lighter two player game. This one is quite reminiscent of Balloon Cup. There are four different color spaces on a board and you can play your numbered cards either on your side or your opponents side of the board. When there are a certain number of cards on both sides of the space, that space scores. If the polarity of the space is +, the player with the highest sum wins and vice-versa if the polarity is -. Some special cards add to the mix as well as cards that can reverse the polarity of a space. It’s a quite light and quick game.
Also at the booth were fancy versions of both games. The fancy version of Voltage was very neat - an actual working electronic version of the game.
Both the games were for sale at the booth and will be generally released in Mid to Late October. I hope to play both games during Gencon and will give more in-depth descriptions when I do.
Just as the Exhibit Hall was closing I ran over to the Z-Man Games booth to pick up a copy of Silk Road - the new Ted Cheatham / Bruno Faidutti game. I then headed over to the boardgaming hall to try to find some victims to play the game with. Fortunately it was quite easy - I simply waved the box around and in a few moments I got three others to join me - Jessica and Mark Taraba as well as Chris Aniballi.
Silk Road is a middle-weight boardgame. The production is very nice - it comes in a big square Kosmos-sized box and the components and the art are the equal of any German game. It comes with multilingual rules in English, German, French and Dutch.
The game says it’s for 3-6 players ages 12 and up and plays in 90 minutes. I would actually say this is more a 10 and up game - there aren’t a ton of rules for this one - and if you are playing with less than six players I doubt you’d reach 90 minutes. Our four player game took around an hour.
The board depicts the Silk Road from Changan to Antioch (see the picture below). Between these cities is a path connecting to other cities. Each of the cities has some action tiles in them. Players start with some money and some resource goods (ivory, silk, etc).
In a round, player bid with their money for the right to decided which city to move to next along the road (usually there’s a choice of two directions). The winner of the bid also gets first choice of which action tile to take from the destination city. After taking his choice he give next choice to another player (he chooses which player). The last player will not get an action tile, but they will control the bidding in the next round.
The tiles do various things - they allow you to trade goods for other goods or for money, they can let you trade money for goods, you can steal goods from other players (this looks like the Faidutti influence here), or do other things. The idea is to get points at the end of the game for your goods and your money. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.
Strategy in the game involves looking ahead to see which of the next cities is advantageous to you, bidding when you need to and staying out when you don’t, and paying attention to what players are collecting what goods (player’s goods and money are behind screens).
I found the game fairly easy to learn and interesting to play. It’s not a deep gamer game - it is more of a medium weight family game with some strategy to it. It is mainly an auction game, but it does have some other decisions besides just which auctions to win. I’ll have to give it another go before I decide on it, but for now I like it - and I think the rest of the group liked it as well.
After Silk Road it was time to head back to the hotel room. My video was finished uploading so I quickly posted the video news item and then headed back to the convention center. Dinner consisted of a slice of pepperoni pizza (overpriced, but not bad). I then wandered to boardgame hall and kibitzed with a group playing Ave Caesar before heading to the Marriot Hotel to keep an appointment.
I had made arrangements earlier in the day with Will Niebling of Mayfair to come up to their hospitality room after dinner for some games. When I arrived in the room I saw they had their newest releases on hand - Weinhandler, Shear Panic, Figaro and Emira.
I’ve played Weinhandler and Shear Panic before in their original versions, so I took the opportunity to play the two I’ve never played before - Figaro and Emira (I’ll report more on Weinhandler and Shear Panic when I visit the Mayfair booth).
Figaro is a new card game from daVinci games and Mayfair that’s designed by Reiner Knizia. This is a bit of a change of pace for daVinci as most of their games are from Italian designers.
Figaro is a light card game for 3-6 players ages 8 and up and plays in 20-30 minutes. Players are dealt out cards that are numbered 1, 2 or 3 in a number of different colors. On your turn, you play a card in front of a player (you can even play one on yourself). The restriction: if a color has already been played on a player, it cannot be played on another player - one player will always have the same color cards played on them. Once the total of a player’s cards is six or over, they take all the face up cards on the table (this is bad, you don’t want cards).
Once one player has run out of cards the round ends and players score. The scoring is fairly unique. There are a set of cardboard roads of different lengths and whoever took the most cards gets the longest round - second most cards gets the second longest road etc. You play three rounds and after three rounds you put your roads together in a line - whoever has the SHORTEST line wins.
The game has a few aspects to it. There is a ‘take that!’ element to it - unusual for a Knizia game. It’s simple but there is a little bit of strategy to it - you can make some nice plays to reduce your chances of getting cards (and the long roads).
I actually thought it was a pretty good light game. Don’t go expecting a deep game here - it’s supposed to be fun and light with just a dollop of strategy. I’m personally not wild about the ‘take that!’ aspect, and because of that probably wouldn’t play it that much, but for those who don’t mind that kind of thing I think it may make a nice light family game.
My last game of the night was Emira - the new game from Phalanx and Mayfair. I’ve been waiting forever to play this one - it was a Hippodice award winner a few years ago and has garnered some very good buzz. I’m pleased to say that, at least after this play, I think it deserves the kudos.
Emira’s theme is definitely different. The idea is that you are trying to entice princesses to join your harem. It sounds a bit sordid, but it’s really quite tame (in game terms, anyway).
This is definitely a gamer game. It’s for 3-5 players ages 12 and up and it really is a 12 and up game. The playing time on the box is 75 minutes, but this would very much depend on the number of players and whether it’s a learning game or not. I was told that learning games can go on quite long, as ours did (we called it after two hours and still had a ways to go) but after the learning game the playing time decreases significantly (and seeing how the game works, I can believe that).
Emira is mainly an auction game, but there are lots of layers here. It also a bit of what Valerie Putman calls a ‘snowball game’ where you have to build up your engine during the game to, in this case, make money.
At the beginning of the game each player gets a goal card which shows the kind of princesses he wants to attract to his harem. Each round a new princess arrives and she will go to the player who is the most desirable to her. She may want a player that is rich, or attractive, or has great status, or has many palaces.
Players can increase their desirability by winning auctions to increase their wealth, attractiveness, status, etc. The auctions are like Princes of Florence - there are a set of things you can win in the auction and the player who bids the most money gets first choice. There is another auction and whoever wins that gets second choice and so on.
Once the auctions have finished, the players look to see who the princess finds most desirable and she goes to that player. Once a player gets the princesses shown on his goal card (or a total of, say, six princesses) he wins the game.
There is much, much more to the game than this. There are event cards you can buy and play, the princesses can have special powers that can harm or help you. There is tons of strategy in this game.
Even though we didn’t finish our game (it was getting very late) and our game went on quite long, everybody said they liked it a lot. I thought it was very good, though I really need more playings to solidify that opinion (and I think my opinion may even get better than that). I think that this is one that gamers are going to like very much.
By the way, I must thank William Niebling for teaching us both Figaro and Emira. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - William is an outstanding game teacher. It’s always a pleasure to learn a game from him.
After Emira it was time to head back to my hotel room for some shut-eye. More good stuff tomorrow - stay tuned!
| Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version | |
 | Days of Wonder |
 | Mattel - that’s designer Brian Yu on the left chatting with Mark Kaufmann of Days of Wonder on the right |
 | Desert Bazaar |
 | Voltage |
 | The fancy version of Desert Bazaar |
 | The fancy - working electronic - version of Voltage |
 | Games Played - Silk Road with Jessica Taraba, Mark Taraba and Chris Aniballi |
 | Silk Road |
 | Silk Road close-up |
 | Around 8:30pm - One view of the big Boardgame Hall... |
 | ...another view of the big Boardgame Hall... |
 | … and a view of the small boardgame hall - lots and lots of boardgamers. |
© 2006 Rick Thornquist
Posted by Rick Thornquist on Aug 11, 2006 at 01:00 AM in Special Features, Convention Reports, Convention Report: Gen Con 2006 / 2625
Comments:
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I am 90% confident that the Bigfoot game will a fantasy version of the Memoire 44 system with a bigger box (and heroe, etc ...) Posted by Olivier Reix on Aug 11, 2006 at 08:02 AM | #
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Rick, from your description, the auctions in Emira sound more like the ones in Tikal than Princes of Florence. In PoF, the active player chooses the item to be bid on and then there’s an auction, while in Tikal, there is an auction for first choice of tiles, followed by another for second choice, and so on. Emira definitely sounds like a game to look out for. Posted by Larry Levy on Aug 11, 2006 at 08:35 AM | #
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Why is it that when I read your review on “Emira”, all I hear in my head is
Why is it that my brain does things like this? At least now I have a video series to unleash my brain’s connections onto the world! bwahahah…
{reference - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPa2VJCtkE
Seriously, that game sounds pretty interesting! Posted by Scott Nicholson on Aug 11, 2006 at 11:24 AM | #
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