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Convention Report: The Gathering of Friends 2006: April 9, 2006 (Day 3)
By Rick Thornquist
April 9, 2006
It’s the third day of the Gathering of Friends 2006 and my second full day. Today was another great day - a little lighter on the new games an a little heavier on the not-so-new games (calling them older games just wouldn’t be right - some of them just aren’t that old!).
After waking up I spent a portion of the morning getting yesterday’s report typed up and posted. Fortunately for me, the hotel has a high speed Internet connection in my room and they also have a business area where I could work which also had a high speed connection. This is a long ways away from a few years ago when I had to wait for 15 minutes to upload my reports over a modem!
Things were already in full swing by the time I got to the ballroom. One thing’s for sure - it’s not very difficult to get into a game here at the Gathering. Games are being started constantly and often someone will spy you wandering around the room and invite you into a game right then and there. If you want to start a particular game, you just need to pick up the box and start waving it around - before long you’ll have a bunch of rabid gamers ready to play.
Ron Charity of RC Hobbies is at the Gathering and he brought along some copies of the four recently released games from Rio Grande - Times Square, Friedrich, Zig-Zag and Carcassonne: the Tower. I grabbed a copy of Zig-Zag, which is also known as Kreuz und Quer from Kosmos. This is another small box game in the same series as Chinesische Mauer.
Zig-Zag is a fast and furious card game. Each player puts a series of path cards in front of him that lead to a destination card. Each path card is divided into a bunch of little areas of different terrain types. A token starts at the beginning of the path. The idea is that you have to move the token through the terrain areas on the path cards to get to the destination.
The game is divided into two phases. The first phase starts with a bunch of terrain cards on the table face-down. When someone says go, all the players start turning over cards simultaneously. If you turn over a card you want, you grab it and put it in your other hand. This is all very fast and furious.
The idea is that you are trying to grab terrain cards that match the terrain areas on the path cards in front of your token. You have to take them in the order that you need them, though!
When the first phase is finished, each player takes turns using the cards they took to move their token along the terrain on the path cards. As long as you have the right terrain cards you can move your token - if you grabbed a wrong one you have to stop. After everyone has gone, if no one is at the destination yet, another round happens and this keeps going until someone wins.
The game is all very light and I thought it was good fun. I think I’d like it as a fast filler when I want something a little different. It’s relatively inexpensive and I’ll be picking up a copy.
Here’s a game that you may not have heard of. Fischmarkt - Feilschen und Handeln is a new game from Clementoni, known as the publisher of big box games like Magna Grecia and WildLife. Fischmarkt comes in a box that’s about half the size of those ones and is designed by Mario Papini, who designed Feudo and Siena. It was introduced at Nuremberg and just very recently released.
Fischmarkt is about, unsurprisingly, buy and selling fish. There a number of rounds in the game and at the beginning of each round, six fishing boats show up with their catch. Their catch is represented by fish cards, which are of a number of different types.
The players then allocate their money, in a blind bidding fashion, to each of the finishing boats. Bids are revealed and whoever has the most money allocated to a boat gets its fish.
Now each player finds out how much he can sell his fish for. Each player can sell certain kinds of fish. There is a trading phase where players can try to acquire the fish they can sell and get rid of ones they can’t.
Then the fish are sold for money. If you have fish that can’t be sold, you lose a bit of money. The game goes on for a few rounds and at the end the player with the most money wins.
The game is a fairly standard game of trying to get goods at a good price and sell them for more. There is a blind bidding aspect to it, which may turn some off, and though I found the trading phase fun, you don’t really know exactly what the fish is worth to others so it can be a bit of a crapshoot. I think the general consensus was that it with either okay or below average. I actually had fun with it, especially the trading aspect. I don’t think that it’s terribly original, but I think I’d play it every now and then.
My next game was Times Square, otherwise known by it’s German name Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb zwei. This is the newest entry in the Kosmos two player series. The game was designed by Reiner Knizia.
The theme is one of trying to get people to come to your bar, but the game is basically a tug-of-war, not dissimilar to How Ruck! / Heave-Ho!. There is a board with two bars at both ends of the board with some spaces in between them. There is a track for a bottle which starts the game in the middle of the board. Another track holds some characters that will move up and down the track, between the player’s bars, dependant on cards that are played.
When characters move into one a player’s bar, the bottle is moved towards that players’s bar. There are other ways of moving the bottle towards a player’s bar. If the bottle reaches a player’s bar, that player wins.
The game sort of feels like a jazzed up version of How Ruck! with characters who have special powers. It’s fairly light but takes a few minutes to get used to the special powers of the characters.
I’m not sure how I feel about the game. It does seem that if you get good cards you can do great but if you don’t you won’t. I’ll have to give this one another game or two before deciding my final opinion of it.
Aton is one of two new games from Queen in their small box game series (the other was Seerauber, which I played yesterday). Whereas Seerauber is a multiplayer game, Aton is a two player game.
In the game there’s a board which shows four temples and in each temple there are spaces for the players to place markers. To do this, each player will play four cards each turn which determine turn order, how many markers and be placed and where, and how many markers of the other player than can be removed. At a certain point the temples are scored - whoever has the most markers in a temple gets to score it and they all have different scoring methods. At the end, whoever has the most victory points wins.
There are lots of things happening in this one. There are many different ways to score and trying to figure out the best way is a challenge. There is a blind-bidding aspect where you allocate your four cards, but it’s not overwhelming. I found the game interesting, but, like Times Square, I’ll need to have another game or two to decide how I really feel about it. On first blush, it looks good.
My first four games of the day were new ones and at this point I thought it was time to take a break from learning new games for a while. For the rest of the day I played some familiar games - here’s some quick takes on the games.
I played Thurn and Taxis again. This one is quickly becoming the favorite of the Gathering - everybody seems to like it. There are only a few copies here but they are constantly in use. Whenever a game ends the game is snatched up right away by another grouop. On second playing I can say that I still think it’s very good - I can see myself playing it a lot.
Next up for me was Timbuktu. This is a Queen game that was released last Essen and is to be released in English by Rio Grande Games. I’ve played this one maybe five times already - it’s a brain burning deduction game. I quite like it - it’s a bit different, though I do feel my brain hurting after playing it.
Next up with another playing of the speed game Zig-Zag. On second playing I still thought the game was a fun. It’s definitely light filler but in that respect I think it does pretty well.
Scott Tepper arrived at the Gathering today and had joined us in our game of Zig-Zag. He offered to teach us a new game that came out last Essen but came in under the radar somewhat. The game is called Bunte Runde and was designed by Reiner Knizia and published by Winning Moves. It actually is a 6 and up game, which marks it as a kid’s game, but it can also be played by adults as an easy to teach filler. I liked it - it worked nicely as a filler game.
As I was looking for another game I noticed the incomparable Dave Bernazzani from across the room. Dave had just arrived after a marathon car trip and we stood around and chatted for a while, mostly noting how much bigger we are both getting - me due to Dairy Queen Blizzards and he due to chocolate chip cookies.
Tery and Mark Noseworthy were looking to start up a game of Ra, so Dave and I joined them. Dave, unfortunately, scored abysmally at the end of the game and used the excuses that he was tired and that there were no cookies in the vicinity. I rocked and rolled and won the game by just three points over Mark.
After teaching another game of Thurn und Taxis (I think I did that three times today) it was time for a game of Hacienda. My experiences with this game have been hit and miss, but others are quite enamored of it. People tell me that my bad experiences have probably been due to the fact that I’ve been using the ‘dog bone’ side of the board. I’m told the other side of the board works much better and after a few games trying it, including this one, I absolutely agree. Many players also play with the variants that come with the game - I’ll have to give them a try.
After Hacienda it was getting late and I was ready to head upstairs for some sleep. Just before I was about to go, my lovely girlfriend Christine told me that she was going to get into a Tichu game and would I be interested in joining? Heck, ya! We partnered up against Michael Weston and Sharon Madden and proceeded to enjoy a very good game of Tichu that found us rocketing to a huge early lead, losing it temporarily, and then eeking out a win at the end. Tremendously fun game - Tichu is one of the great card games of all time.
Before I headed off to bed I surveyed the room for a final time. It was 3:00 in the morning and there was still 5 or 6 groups in the main area of the ballroom playing various things, including a brand new game of Cleopatra that had been brought in today by Eric Hautemont of Days of Wonder. In the back part of the ballroom the usual late night Werewolf game was in full swing.
And that’s it for today! Tomorrow promises more new games as well as, hopefully, a special look at the Gathering (time and technology allowing). Bye for now!
| Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version | |
 | My games played today… Kreuz und Quer / Zig-Zag with Henning Krope, James Miller, Sterling Babcock and John Palagyi |
 | Fischmarkt - Feilschen und Handeln with Henning, James, Sterling and John |
 | Fischmarkt - Feilschen und Handeln main board |
 | Fischmarkt - Feilschen und Handeln player board and shield |
 | Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb zwei / Times Square |
 | Aton |
 | Bunte Runde with Scott Tepper, a very serious Frank Branham, Henning and Christine Simundson |
 | Bunte Runde in play |
 | Ra with Dave Bernazzani, Tery and Mark Noseworthy |
 | Hacienda with John, Brian Yu, Rob Smolka and Christine |
 | Some pictures from around the Gathering… The Gathering crowd in the middle of the day |
 | Some games played… Um Ru(h)m und Ehre |
 | Designer Alan Ernstein at the head of the table directs a game of Crystal Faire |
 | Indonesia |
 | Maharaja |
 | Cleopatra |
 | Das Zepter von Zavandor / The Scepter of Zavandor |
 | Ticket to Ride - Marklin Edition |
 | Dale Yu, Henning Kropke and Valerie Putman pose for a picture |
© 2006 Rick Thornquist
Posted by Rick Thornquist on Apr 10, 2006 at 08:30 AM in Special Features, Convention Reports, Convention Report: The Gathering of Friends 2006 / 3422
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one more day....one more day.... Thanks as always for the picture and report Rick. See everyone tomorrow nite! Posted by Craig Massey on Apr 10, 2006 at 02:35 PM | #
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