Dale Yu: Two Mini-Reviews (one for the adults and one for the kids)

This week, I’d like to take the chance to talk about two things that deserve a bit more attention… First is the game Rugby World by Ghenos Games.  I will not / can not do a full review at this point as I’ve only played it twice (and neither was a full game), and I really do not to do full-on reviews without at least three full plays of the game.  The other is a new book, “The 15 Greatest Board Games in the World”, a new release from Klutz Games.

Rugby World

This game was a new release at Essen 2007.  I had a chance to talk with the folks from Ghenos about the game during the Fair.  Timing-wise, it was a great time to release the game as the Rugby World Cup was going on that very week!  I think the folks at Ghenos were a bit surprised at my interest in the game – but I’m actually a fairly big fan of rugby (and other world sports).  Though American football is my favorite sport, I’m just as likely to be watching rugby, European club soccer, Aussie rules football, the Tour de France or hurling as am I to be watching MLB, NHL, NASCAR or NBA. 

So, my experience with rugby goes back about 10 years.  I was first introduced to playing rugby while in college and managed to play a few games with the club team before I realized that I wasn’t quite big enough or strong enough to do well at it (and that I really liked the current appearance of my ears!).  Since that time, my involvement with the sport has mainly been in watching the Rugby World Cup, Tri-Nations or Six Nations rugby on the TV.  While I would not consider myself an expert in any sense of the word, I would say that I’m familiar enough with the game to understand basic tactics and to be able to play a board game based upon the sport.

Before I talk about the game, let me try to generally describe rugby.  (And I will describe Rugby Union as opposed to Rugby League).  It is thought to be the precursor to American Football, so some of this may sound familiar.  Teams have 15 players, and the primary goal is to score more points than the other team.  From Wikipedia:  “A typical passage of rugby takes the following form: the team in possession of the ball moves the ball up the field in an effort to ground the ball over the opponents’ goal-line in order to score a try until such time as the ball carrier is tackled. They then form a ruck in order to win the ball back. This process repeats until one team makes a mistake that violates the Laws of the game, moves off the field of play or a try or goal is scored.”.  The frustrating thing for many newcomers to the game is that there seem to be about 100 ways to violate the Laws of the game which leads to a whistle and a possible change of possession without much explanation given from the officials. 

A big difference from football is that there is no forward pass; in rugby, you can lateral the ball to a teammate – but this must always be backwards.  You are able to advance the ball forward by kicking it, but this type of play generally results in the opponents getting control of the ball.  While you have the ball, your opponents try to impede your progress by tackling you.

There are three main ways of scoring (to my mind).  First is the “try” – this is the equivalent of a touchdown – and it occurs when you carry the ball into the opponent’s end zone AND touch it to the ground.  This is worth 5 points.  If you score a “try”, your team can then attempt a conversion which is worth 2 points.  Second, you can score a drop goal – this happens during the run of play where a player drops the ball to the ground and kicks it at the goal (which looks like an old-school H shaped football goalpost).  If it goes thru, this scores 3 points.  The final way to score is a penalty goal.  As I mentioned earlier, there are all sorts of violations that stop the game.  If a foul is committed close enough to the goal, a team can choose to try a penalty kick from the point of the foul (kinda like a field goal).  If this is good, it is worth 3 points.

The game turns out to be a very tactical game which often concentrates on field position.  Oftentimes, many games have only a few tries and the majority of scoring comes from penalty goals.  Thus, field position is quite important as each team tries to pin the ball back in their opponent’s defensive half so that they can take advantage of turnovers or fouls to then score tries or get good chances at penalty goals.  The game is very fluid, and the players are in constant motion.  The motions of the players is hard to follow at first if you’re not used to the game as the players constantly need to be set up behind the ball as they generally only take laterals to get the ball.

Rugby World is a simulation of a rugby match and has each player in control of the 15 players on a side.  Each game is supposed to represent a standard rugby match.  You have plenty of teams to choose from as Ghenos has included characters for 16 different teams in the box.  In fact, once I punched and bagged all the teams, I could barely make the lid fit back on!  Each team has their own set of attributes (strength, passing and speed) which allow each team to play more like its real-life counterpart.  Each team also has a set of special ability cards which help give the game a bit of unpredictability.

The game is supposed to be a full representation of a rugby match, but as you can imagine, it would be extremely tedious trying to track the motions of 30 different players who all are theoretically moving simultaneously.  Ghenos has come up with a clever system which allows for a fair amount of flexibility and simplification of movements.  You can either move players using a vector system (the same system used in Bolide – their racing simulation game) or for more simple motions, you can also simply pick players up and place them in the positions you need them in – with the restriction that those players must always be behind the ball.  The vector motion does a good job of simulating the acceleration and pace of the wings while the ability to simply move players behind the ball makes the reorganization of players much less tedious that it would be otherwise. Many of the other facets of a rugby match are dealt with easily as well.  Line-outs (similar to throw-ins) are simplified into a guessing game of sorts.  Kicking is resolved using a die and a chart which takes into account the range and the accuracy of the kicker. 

The game is meant for both beginners and veterans of rugby.  The rules are laid out in a way that not only explains the rules of Rugby World but also serves as a nice primer of the rules to the sport itself.  However, I would say that if you weren’t already used to the sport in general, it would be difficult to figure out the strategy of how you’d like your players to move.  Additionally, if you weren’t familiar with the vector movement seen in Bolide, you could end up spending a lot of energy and time trying to figure that part out.

In any event, I’ve been able to get the game to the table only twice with an opponent.  The main reason for this is that I don’t have many gamers around me that like to play sports-based games.  Furthermore, no gamer locally has any interest or experience with rugby.  So, this is unfortunately a game that I’ll only be able to play at conventions (which I can find a Brit, Kiwi or Aussie around)… The game plays fairly well – the movements of the players is fairly intuitive (at least to me) and the game flows fairly well.

I have yet to play a full game thus far because while the movements are intuitive, the game takes a long time to play.  In my most recent game, we maybe played through three possessions each, and this took us about 30 minutes!  If this were a real rugby match, that same amount of activity would have taken maybe 3 or 4 minutes… Admittedly, we were referring to the rules a fair bit and talking to other people watching us play – but I don’t think that we would shave that much time off gameplay.  At that rate, playing a full match would take me over three hours, and I’m not sure that I’m willing to spend that much time playing a sports simulation.  (That game was cut short as both of us had dinner plans that forced us to quit early!)

However, the time spent playing the game was quite enjoyable, and I do feel like I have a good understanding of the rules and mechanics in the game.  The game itself is best termed as a simulation as there are a lot of things for the player to think about.  It doesn’t have the same level of excitement that I’ve gotten from Crash Tackle (another rugby game), but I think Rugby World is truer to the actual sport than Crash Tackle – Crash Tackle has been described by many as a hex-based wargame-like game which has rugby as a theme… (but that’s for another column).  Though, I really can’t give a full opinion until I’ve had a chance to play the game a few more times, but I think that any rugby fan would be well served by adding this game to his/her collection.

Rugby World is another interesting addition to the Ghenos line.  It frankly won’t get a lot of play here – not because I think the game isn’t fun or interesting but more for a lack of regular opponents who are interested in playing it!  In that regard, it is very similar to another Ghenos game, Race the Wind, which is a great simulation of regatta racing – but I can never find anyone here who is even remotely interested in this sort of game (or the America’s Cup for that matter)… If you’re interested in playing either of these at the next convention, please drop me a line!  I’ll be over here in the corner practicing the Haka so I can intimidate you with my pre-game ritual.

“The 15 Greatest Board Games in the World”

This book is a new release from Klutz – a company that “creates activity books and other great stuff for kids ages 3 to 103.” I know one of the “game gurus” that was involved in the book, Mark Jackson; and he and R. Wayne Schmittberger have put together a nice collection of games to keep children and families entertained.  You could almost think of the book as a kid’s version of “Gamut of Games” with the added advantage that this book includes all of the pieces that you would need.

The book itself is of fairly sturdy construction using heavyweight paper held together with a wire spiral binding.  It has already managed to survive a few weeks in the hands of my kids without any significant wear.  The front cover of the book also has a compartment which holds all of the necessary pieces – 2 dice, reversible markers in 6 colors, a set of cardboard counters and a set of pentominoes.  The only pieces not included in the book are 5 pennies, which the authors assume you can come up with on your own.  (Why they didn’t make the list price of the book $25.00 and include the 5 pennies in the box is beyond me…)

I have a few complaints about the construction of the book.  First, the pieces are held in by a box made of a thin piece of plastic which I fear will eventually rip open at the box hinges on the side.  However, this hasn’t happened yet, so it may only be an irrational fear of mine.  Second, I would have personally liked the pages to be a bit thicker – but I could certainly understand how thicker pages may have made the book too thick or too heavy.

The layout of the book is very user-friendly.  Each game is printed in full color and shown on two pages.  The artwork is quite good and child-accessible.  Generally, the rules to the game are on the left-sided page with the board on the right.  The wire spiral binding allows the book to open fully to keep the book (and playing surface) flat.  The rules to each game are explained in simple terms – simple enough that my seven-year-old is able to get started on most games without my help.  Additionally, there are plenty of helpful illustrations within the rules to help with setup or with gameplay.

But enough about the book… What about the games? 

Well, some of the games are classics – Checkers, Pentominoes, Nine Mens Morris and Solitaire – which really need no introduction here.  While there’s nothing special about these games, they are common enough that you (or your child) should be able to find someone else who knows how to play these games without any rules explanation.  There are also a few games which are cleverly disguised adaptations of other classic games such as Go and Chinese Checkers.

A few of the games are adaptations of traditional games from around the world (and through the ages).  Examples of this are The Royal Game of Ur (from Sumeria around 3000BC), Tigers and Goats (from Nepal), Roundabouts (which is a version of Surakarta from Java), Fanorona (from Madagascar), and Push Penny Bounce (similar to Shovelboard from Ye Olde England).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly to the readers of BGN, there are a few games that are Euro-game in nature.  Corsaro, a 1991 release by Wolfgang Kramer, is included in the book as is China Moon, a 2003 Bruno Faidutti release.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the inclusion of these two games which were both published in full format in the past – in fact, I have copies of both of them in my game closet currently!

Corsaro is a old gem which hasn’t seen the light of day in my house in many years!  (Mostly because I forgot that I owned it!) It is a clever cooperative game where the players work together to move their fleet of boats from one island to another while avoiding the three pirate ships.  On each turn, a player rolls two dice and then has to assign one die to one of his boats and one die to a pirate.  If a pirate lands on or passes by a pirate, it is captured and sent to Pirate Island… The game continues until either all the boats have either escaped to safety or have been captured by the pirates.  The die choosing mechanic allows children to evaluate different movement possibilities as well as to apply introductory risk management skills.  Additionally, as it is a cooperative game, it helps with communication and sharing.

China Moon is a cute Bruno Faidutti frog racing game with a bit of randomness thrown in (well… it is a Bruno game, after all).  Well, it’s not really a frog-racing game, it’s really a set collecting game that’s hidden in the theme of a racing game… In any event, each player has three frogs that all start at the beginning of the course.  On your turn, you have to move three different frogs – and at least one of the frogs has to be an opponent’s.  Each frog moves exactly two empty spaces (occupied spaces are not counted).  As the frogs move along the course, they may encounter lily counters or animal symbols.  If you land on a lily counter, you simply collect it.  If you land on an animal symbol. There are some special instructions that you follow such as moving again or switching lilies with another player.  When frogs make it to the end of the course they get a bonus lily.  Once four frogs have completed the course, the game automatically ends and the winner is the player with the most points.  Points are scored based on the size of your sets – matching sets of lilies are worth many more points than individual lilies.  The game is good for children because it is a good example of a game with a non-standard end point.  The winner of the game is not necessarily the player whose frogs finish first.  Additionally, in true Faidutti fashion, it’s hard to predict the winner of the game (as the lily counters will often be traded back and forth) – and this creates exciting games.  Additionally, this feature helps children of different ability levels to remain engaged in the same game.

The 15 Greatest Board games in the World lists for $24.95, and when you consider this cost in comparison to what you’d normally pay for a game, it is a darn good value.  Heck, it’s probably a good value just to get the portable copies of Corsaro and China Moon!  If you have a problem finding it, you can look at www.klutz.com or search for it by ISBN: 1-59174-507-1.  My family has already enjoyed the book a great deal, and I would highly recommend it to other families.  The games included in the book will provide enough variety to keep you occupied, and the portability will allow you to bring it along to just about any location.  Your kids will thank you too…

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

© 2008 Dale Yu

---

Comments:

You must register with BGN in order to comment. Registration is free!

Thanks, Dale!  I was really curious about the game list in that book. Posted by Nathan Morse on Apr 23, 2008 at 06:34 AM | #

< Back Home