Convention Report: The Gathering of Friends 2006: April 10, 2006 (Day 4)
By Rick Thornquist
April 10, 2006
This is my report for day four of the Gathering of Friends 2006. Today I played a number of new games plus today was the day for the Spiel des Afternoon game design competition.
Today was the also the day I did something new - my first video coverage of a game event. This was really an experiment - I had no idea if it would turn out but I thought I’d give it a try. I didn’t even have a real video camera! I just had a small digital camera which took movies and I also had a basic editing program. I shot the movies throughout the day and edited them together after I was done gaming for the day. I did the narration five times before I got one that didn’t have any technical problems and sounded good and then generated the movie and posted it. I posted links to it in a previous news item - check it out!
After writing and posting yesterday’s report, I headed to the ballroom and ran into Frank Branham who was toting around a copy of Nacht der Magier. Nacht der Magier is actually a kid’s game that was published by Drei Magier Spiele and came out last Essen. I’d heard some good things about it but never had a chance to try it. Now was my chance!
The most interesting thing about the game is that it can be played either in the light or in the dark - some pieces of the game actually glow in the dark. I played it in the light, but I’m very interested to see how it works in the dark.
It’s basically a dexterity game where you are using a wooden piece to try to push another piece into a hole in the center of the board. Complicating things are a pile of other pieces on the board. The board is raised and if you push another piece off the board on your turn ends and play passes to the next player. Players take turns until someone gets their piece in the hole.
It’s a nice dexterity game and beautifully produced. There are a few other dexterity games that I think I like better, like Hamster Rolle, but this one was pretty good. Now I want to see how it plays in the dark!
After Nacht der Magier it was time to get people together for the Spiel des Afternoon. What is the Spiel des Afternoon you say? Well, two years ago, a group of Gathering people were at a local craft shop and saw some of the goofy little knick-knacks they sold there. Three of them - Andrea Meyer, Friedemann Friese and James Miller - challenged themselves to each make a game out of the same set of pieces. Last year those games were played and judged and Andrea won the competition. They renewed the challenge for this year and today was the day to see the results.
The pieces they used for this year were little plastic baby carriages, some very small stuffed rabbits and some plastic doves. I can’t even imagine trying to design a game with these silly pieces, but they all did it and did it very well.
Andrea’s entry was Die Rente ist Sicher - a family board game. James Miller also did a board game which was a race game - Rubber Bunny Buggy Bumpers. Friedemann did a dexterity game - Crash Test Bunnies.
There were three groups of judges and we all played all three games. Afterwards we conferred to decide the winner. The grand prize was awarded to Friedemann Friese, whose game was ridiculously fun. The other games were quite good as well - I liked James race game a lot and Andrea’s game made the best use of the components of the three.
That’s it for this year’s competition and plans are already underway to do it again next year.
Before the Spiel des Afternoon I had shot some video clips and after the competition I began in earnest to get more video for my video report. I went around the ballroom and got some shots from around the Gathering plus some shots of people playing games. I then did a quick cut to make sure that it was actually working and it played pretty well. I vowed to get more video later in the evening and then cut it together and post it after I was finished gaming for the day.
After doing my video work, it was time for a reception that Alan was holding for everybody in the hotel’s bar. The lure of free drinks was too much to resist for most people - games were temporarily abandoned to get together and socialize. I was there fore a while before a group of us decided to head out for dinner.
What was supposed to be a quick jaunt to a local Italian place turned out to be much more of a trip than we expected. We got sort of uh, lost, and a 15 minute trip ended up taking more than an hour. We did finally find the restaurant and having some ice cream afterwards made us feel that the long trip was worth it. Strangely enough, it wasn’t James Miller who took us on this odyssey (he’s known for doing this sort of thing). I don’t want to embarrass our navigator by telling you who it was that got us lost, but I will tell you that I think he is a weatherman on the Weather Channel and his last name is Madden (and his first name is Warren).
After getting back, it was time for more games. My next game was Um Krone und Kragen, the new dice game designed by Tom Lehmann and published by Amigo.
I actually had played this last week back in Vancouver with Patrick Korner and he then christened the game ‘Yachtzee the Gathering’. That’s a very good description, actually.
In each turn in the game you roll some dice, set aside some, roll the rest again, set aside some more, etc until you’re done. There are a set of cards in the middle of the table and each one of these cards can be won by rolling a certain combination - all evens, all odds, 3 of a kind, etc. Each turn you can win a card and on a subsequent turn you can use the card’s power - get another die, change the value of a die, etc. During the game you get more and more cards which give you more dice with more powers.
The object is to get seven of a kind, which triggers the end of the game. There is then a final turn where players try to get the most the most of a kind they can. Whoever gets the best result wins.
There is a bit of strategy, but this is mostly a fun dice rolling game. There are two caveats - this being a dice rolling game, someone could win by sheer luck even if they did badly during the game (that happened this game). There is also tons of downtime - unless you are kibitzing with the other players while they are rolling, you’ll spend lots of time twiddling your thumbs. My first game had three players and I thought it was a fun game that was a bit different, but the four player game just had too much downtime for me (though it didn’t bother the others). I bought a copy of the game and think it will make a nice filler, though I’d more likely play it with fewer players.
Jericho is a new card game from Abacusspiele and, guess what, it was also designed by Tom Lehmann! It seems it’s Tom Lehmann day for me at the Gathering (and I actually played some games with him later in the evening).
This is a simple card game where the cards are wall sections. Each card is a certain color and number. On your turn you usually put a wall section in front of you. If this is the first of a color you’ve played, a new wall is formed otherwise you extend your wall of that color. There are also trumpet wall cards which are wild, and have the added power of eliminating the highest numbered wall of one color from among all the players (preferably eliminating walls of your opponents instead of your own!).
Instead of building you can put a card into a scoring pile. There are three scoring rounds which allocate these cards to whoever has the strongest wall of the card’s color - summing the totals of the cards of each player’s wall. These cards are each worth a point at the end of the game. After three scoring rounds, whoever has the most points wins.
Jericho is a pretty light card game. You do have choices in the game, but sometimes they are limited by your hand of cards. It can also be a bit chaotic. In the end, I thought it okay to pretty good - a light card game I may play every once in a while.
My next game was Aquadukt, a new game from Schmidt Spiele.
First things first - wow, does this game look a lot light Santiago. I mean, it really, really looks like Santiago. It’s got a gridded board onto which you will play canals that run from springs. It plays somewhat different, but gosh, the games look similar. Let’s just say I hope the designers of Santiago are getting a cut of this one because the resemblance is unmistakable.
In addition to placing canals and spring, players play tiles which have one to four houses on them into the squares on the board. This is done by rolling a twenty sided die, which tells you which area (made up of four or more squares) you have to put your house.
At the end of the game, any houses that do not have water from canals are removed from the board. Whoever then has the most houses on the board wins the game.
The game plays quickly, but does have a fair sized luck factor. There is some strategy there, but you won’t win on strategy alone. The game is a bit too lucky for me, but I can see it being a pretty good family game for people where the luck isn’t as much of factor, and they don’t mind the dollop of strategy.
My last game of the night (that I can report on, I actually played a prototype afterwards) was the Michael Schacht game Diabolo, published by Amigo.
Diabolo is a card game. There are different colored cards that are numbered from 1 to 5. Each turn, a player will draw a card and play a card. The cards are played into rows on the table - each color going in a different row.
Each row has two sides - the heaven side and the hell side. You can play your card on either side, with a few restrictions. Once two rows are full - have five cards - the round is scored. In each row, if there is a higher sum of cards on the heaven side, it scores positively. If there is a higher sum of cards on the hell side, it scores negatively. The player who has the highest sum of cards in that color in his hand scores for that row, positively or negatively.
A few rounds are played and the player with the highest score wins.
It feels to me like Schacht was trying to do another Coloretto here. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me (nor any of the others). It’s just too much of a crapshoot - you have too little control and are almost totally at the mercy of the card draw and what other players play. I love Coloretto and was hoping for lightning to strike twice here, but I’m afraid I’ll be giving Diabolo a miss.
After Diabolo, I played a Friedemann Friese prototype. A very nice card game.
Then it was time to get some final video clips, edit the together, and post them. While I was editing my movie, the incomparable Greg Schloesser came by and we chatted for a while about all things gaming. We compared notes on the games we played and Greg had a pile that he was recommending. I hope to plays those in the days ahead.
That’s it for today!
| Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version | |
 | My games played today… Nacht der Magier with Rodney Somerstein, Andrea Meyer and Frank Branham |
 | Nacht der Magier at the beginning of the game |
 | Nacht der Magier in the middle of the game |
 | The Spiel des Afternoon starts - Designers Andrea Meyer and Friedemann Friese flank host Henning Kropke |
 | Andrea’s entry into the competition - Die Rente ist Sicher |
 | Die Rente ist Sicher close-up |
 | James Miller’s entry - Rubber Bunny Buggy Bumpers |
 | Rubber Bunny Buggy Bumpers close-up |
 | Friedemann Friese’s entry - Crash Test Bunnies |
 | Crash Test Bunnies close-up |
 | Crash Test Bunnies - the carnage! |
 | Crash Test Bunnies - the winners |
 | Henning reveals the winners |
 | James wins second place |
 | Friedemann wins the grand prize |
 | Friedemann celebrates his victory |
 | The three competing designers |
 | The judges |
 | Um Krone und Kragen with Brian Leet, Larry Levy and James Miller |
 | Um Krone und Kragen |
 | Um Krone und Kragen close-up |
 | Jericho |
 | Aquadukt with Peter, Jay Bloodworth and Kevin Gonzales |
 | Aquadukt |
 | Diabolo with Larry, Steven Friedland, Chris Page and Tom Lehmann |
 | Diabolo |
 | Some pictures from around the Gathering… Antike |
 | Payoff |
 | Thurn und Taxis |
 | Blue Moon City - that’s Scott Nicholson smiling for the camera |
 | Crokinole |
 | Descent - that’s Alan Moon on the left |
© 2006 Rick Thornquist
Posted by Rick Thornquist on Apr 11, 2006 at 11:56 AM in Special Features, Convention Reports, Convention Report: The Gathering of Friends 2006 / 3431
