Dale’s Gathering of Friends 2007 Report: Part One of ???

I’ve just returned to the real world after spending 9 days in the utopian world of The Gathering of Friends.  What do people do at the Gathering?  Well, they play games, chat with friends, eat, possibly sleep, and then play more games!  Most people aren’t bothered by work (unless it’s boardgame related), and cell-phones don’t seem to work in the gameroom!  The entire room is surrounded by 8-foot tables that are stacked high with games, games, and games.  You can find just about anything you want there – from the rare game that you have to play just once so that you can say you played it to the newest releases from Nuremberg.  Additionally, there are plenty of prototypes to play so that you can stay on the cutting edge of game development! 

Furthermore, because of the limited invitation list, the Gathering seems more like a community than a convention.  Each year, you get a chance to game with and chat with the same group of gamers.  It’s surprising how strong a friendship can develop over just one week of time spent together during a year.  It’s also really nice to know that if you’re looking to play a game that you can pretty much find anyone in the room to join you and make a great addition to the game.

So what did I play this year?  I didn’t get quite as much gaming in as I would have liked due to the fact that I helped run the puzzlehunt at this year’s Gathering – but I still got a great mix of old and new games!

Thurs 3/29
Volle Wolle (Zoch)

Fri 3/30
Pirates on the High Seas (Ravensburger)

Sat 3/31
“The Pie Game� (Henning Kropke prototype)
Fortuna (2F prototype)

Sun 4/1
Tulipmania (Scott Nicholson prototype)
Age of Discovery (Mayfair)
Through The Ages – Full Game (Czech Board Games)

Mon 4/2
Hasrlwurz and Barenklau (Murmel)
Volle Wolle (Zoch)
Colosseum (DoW)
Guatamala Cafe (Eggert)
Pig In A Poke (2F prototype)
Portobello Market (Schmidt)
(Alan Moon prototype)
Sakkara (Kosmos/RGG)
Tanz der Hornochsen (Amigo)

Tues 4/3
Wikinger (HiG/RGG)
Portobello Market (Schmidt)
Venedig (Amigo)
Einfach Genial Knoblespass (Kosmos)
Jetzt schlagt’s 13 (Ravensburger)
Claim It! (Wattsalpoag)
Sakkara (Kosmos/RGG)
Caylus Magna Carta (pre production – RGG)

Wed 4/4
Venedig (Amigo)
Colosseum (DoW)
Tichu (Fata Morgana)

Thurs 4/5
Wizard (Amigo)
Los Mampfos (Zoch)
Pirates on the High Seas (Ravensburger)
Treasure Hunt (run by myself, John Palagyi, James Miller, Valerie Putman)
Tichu (Fata Morgana)

Friday 4/6
Jetzt schlagt’s 13 (Ravensburger)
Los Mampfos (Zoch)
Age of Steam, 3rd Edition (Prototype from Martin Wallace)
Project X (Lauwers Games)
Password (MB)
Age Of Steam: Netherland (Winsome)
Age Of Steam: Austria (Winsome)
Age Of Steam: The Sun (Bezier Games)

Saturday 4/7
Card Football (CSE Games)
Colosseum (DoW)
Card Football (CSE Games)

That’s it – only 44 games this year – but again, much of my time was spent preparing for and then running the puzzle hunt.  I’ll go back to the top and start describing some of the games that I was able to play.  I suspect that this report will be split amongst the next two or three columns though!

Volle Wolle (Zoch)

This is one of the new releases brought from Germany by my friend Heli as a present for me and my boys.  It is basically a slightly tactical dice game.  Each round, a number of cards are flipped up to the middle of the table – and for the most part, each card has a positive or negative victory point amount on the card.  Once the cards are visible, each player then makes a secret and simultaneous bid stating what sum the player thinks he can roll on a d8, d10 and d12.  The bids are revealed and the highest bidder gets the priviledge of going first.  That player rolls all three dice, and if he successfully meets or exceeds his bid, he gets to choose three cards from those on the table.  If he does not make his bid, he freezes one (AND ONLY one) die and re-rolls the other two.  If the bid is met now, the player gets two cards from the center.  If not, one more die is frozen and the last one is rerolled.  If the sum after the third roll meets the bid, the player gets one card.  If the player is unsuccessful in meeting the bid, he gets a wool chip from the table which will give him a +1 modifier on any future roll.  After the highest bidding player has taken his turn, the next player takes his turn.  Cards are distributed in the same manner as outlined above.  If there are not enough cards available, the active player takes all the cards that are left, and the round is over.  Otherwise, the players continue to take turns in decreasing bid order.  If the turn gets to the player who made the lowest bid, that player does not have to roll the dice as he gets all the remaining cards for free.

So is the game fun?  Yes, but no.  It’s fun for about the first four or five turns, but then it becomes unfortunately quite repetitive.  Additionally, the bidding system doesn’t really seem to work as there isn’t much penalty for missing your bid.  In fact, the only penalty in the game is that if you manage to roll less than 14 on the three dice that you are forced to take all the negative scoring sheep on the board.  There are some good ideas in the game with opportunity for some clever tactical play – such as trying to figure out where you’d like to be in turn order to get the best chance to get the cards that you want – but again, the less than perfect bidding system makes it quite difficult to do any such planning.

Will I play it again?  Yes – it’s one of those games that I would have likely not purchased on my own – but now that I have it, it’s good enough to keep its space in the game closet.  It’s a small box (which is a significant plus for the filler games that I keep around), and the rules are easy to teach.  The game itself takes about 20 minutes which is about the right length for what you get out of the game.  As I mentioned above, it’s hard to plan ahead in this game, but let’s face it – it’s a dicefest!  And as long as all the players know that going into it, it will serve as a nice filler.

Additionally, I think that it will serve nicely as a way to introduce my kids to dice games.  For younger players, the game will provoke some interesting decisions.  First, the kids will have to learn to how to value the different dice when choosing which one to freeze (i.e. is it better to freeze a 6 on the d8 or is it better to freeze an 8 on the d12?).  Additionally, for less sophisticated gamers, the bidding system may not be obviously broken.  Finally, I like the games with a larger luck element in them for my kids as it allows everyone to have a better chance to win without anyone having to “throwâ€? the game.

Thanks again to Heli for bringing me this nice little game from Germany!

Pirates on the High Seas (Ravensburger)

This is one of the last games from Essen that I had yet to play.  The main reason it took so long to play this is that it didn’t arrive from Funagain until March!  And given the proximity of the Gathering and the puzzlehunt preparations, I didn’t have much time to play games at all prior to the Gathering.  Anyways, once my brother saw the game sitting in the kitchen, it only took about 3 minutes before we had opened it and started putting all the pieces together.

The game centers around two large pirate ships (about a foot long).  Each ship has a number of targets that the opponent can hit – the main sail, the flag on the mast, the prow, a lantern on the back, and a secret treasure compartment in the very rear of the boat.  Each ship also has a cannon on it that it can use to shoot at the opponent.  Additionally, there is a tower in the game which provides another cannon that is shared by both players.  There are also two treasure chests hidden in the tower which can be claimed by the players. 

At the start of the game, each player receives a card with his three secret missions on them.  The winner of the game is the first player who is able to achieve all three secret missions and return his ship to port.  The secret missions are basically combinations of each of the different things that you could shoot or collect.  The turns themselves are quite simple.  You flick a spinner that gives you a combination of possible actions:  move your ship, shoot cannons or move (and shoot) the tower.  That’s it.  Flick the spinner, do the actions, let the other person go.

Is it fun.  Yes!  It’s a blast shooting up pirate ships and talking in truly horrendous pirate accents.  Is it challenging?  Depends on your aim, I suppose.  Though I seemed to have some problems learning how to aim the cannons, my brother was able to get the hang of it quite easily.  Given the strength of the springs in the cannons, anything on the entire board is targetable at any time.  But in the end, it doesn’t really matter, as it’s simply a blast to play.  Games last about 10-15 minutes and the time seems to fly by.

Is it good for kids?  Actually yes.  There really aren’t that many pieces to lose, and the “cannonballsâ€? are actually long plastic pieces about 3 inches in length – so they should be hard to misplace.  And as I’ve seen with my kids, it can be quite challenging to aim the cannon when you’re only 6.  This one should get a fair amount of replay in my house as the kids get older.

�The Pie Game�

This is a prototype by Henning Kropke.  The story behind this game is quite simple.  First, one of the players needs to get married – traditionally about two weeks before the playing of the game.  It would also help if the wedding takes place in a faraway land (such as Germany) from the location of the game so that none of the other players had a realistic chance of making the wedding.  The game itself is a recreation of the celebration around the wedding.

As the game is still in prototype form, some of the components still have to be provided by the playtesters.  Valerie provided the plates, napkins and forks.  I went out with Henning to a local bakery, Just Pies, which strangely enough makes just pies (http://www.just-pies.com/).  Seven (yes – that’s right – seven!) pies were purchased for use in the game.  The flavors we procured were:  Coconut cream, peach, bumbleberry, key lime, Buckeye, blueberry and strawberry-rhubarb.

We started out the game with a preliminary round of Valerie’s home-made chicken salad.  Henning admitted that this wasn’t really in the current ruleset, but it did seem to get us off to a good start.  Plenty of pink champagne was also used in the first round.  Being a prototype, we did have to settle for plastic champagne glasses, but Henning assures me that the full production copy will have nice flutes for use.

Once we finished the chicken salad, it was on to the main portion of the game.  Each pie was split into 6 sections (one for each “playerâ€?: myself, Henning, Friedemann Friese, Valerie, Brian and Christine).  The object of the game was to completely finish your pieces of pie.  Each completely consumed piece of pie was worth one point.  Additionally, there is an immediate victory condition which could be achieved if any player was able to finish his seventh, and final, piece of pie.

The game started off tightly.  The players chose to start with bumbleberry and coconut, and everyone was off to a fast start – with the exception of Friedemann who needed some practice and went back for more chicken salad.  Within a few minutes, everyone was at one point except for Friedemann who was still at zero.  The other chilled pies were all brought out around this time.  The coconut pie was a strange shade of yellow, and as a result, I passed on even trying it knowing that I was now at a handicap for my maximum score!

While this was going on, the other players decided to test out a new variant to the game.  We tried to distract Henning from his pie eating by giving him a present to take back to his new wife.  We gave him a collage photo frame with pictures taken from assorted gaming conventions.  Hopefully it will make it back to Germany unscathed by the TSA.

About halfway through the game, it was clear that there were different classes of players in our little game.  Henning, Freidemann and Valerie were in the lead group.  Dale and Brian were just behind – though it did appear that Brian was starting to suffer from a bit of “analysis paralysisâ€?.  It took him about 15 minutes of staring at the game to get from his 3rd point to his 4th!  Finally, Christine was bringing up the rear of the pack – apparently working on a slow-but-steady long term strategy.  While most of the other players had left the Buckeye pie for last – this is basically a chocolate silk pie with peanut butter whisked into the filling – as it was quite rich and decadent, Christine went headfirst into this challenge.  Unfortunately for her, it was as rich and filling as the other players feared, and this really seemed to slow down Christine for the rest of the game.

We did need to discuss with Henning about a confusing rule – could a player repeat a type of pie for a valid score?  There was much discussion, but the official ruling was that a player could, in fact, repeat a type of pie so long as all other players had been given a fair chance to eat their own piece.  Upon hearing this, Valerie quickly tucked into another piece of bumbleberry pie in lieu of her coconut slice.  I must admit that I’m not a big fan of this rule, but hey, I’m not the designer of the game!

The end-game comes on pretty quickly in this game.  It starts out in a flurry of excitement and scoring, but as you progress through the game, further scoring can become quite difficult.  The modification of the rules (now known as the Valerie rule) do help somewhat as they allow players to avoid some of the pies that seem less tasty.  Additionally, I think that further editions of the game may lean more towards lighter pies such as lemon meringue or more fresh fruit pies.  The Buckeye pie was good, but any pie that is so rich as to be considered “dessert for the dessert gameâ€? are likely a bit too much for this type of game.  Furthermore, it is a refrigerated pie, and we all know that including pieces such as this would drive the cost of the game sky-high (even if most of the rest of the pieces were made in China!).

Here are our final scores:
Valerie 6* (though two pieces were bumbleberry)
Friedemann 5.5
Henning 5
Brian 4.5
Dale 3.75
Christine 3

Reviews on the game were all fairly positive.  I think the game has good replay value, but I’m not sure how often it will get to the table as I don’t usually host German gamers that have just recently been married!  In any event, this game will have a space in the game closet as it can play a virtually unlimited number of players and is quite easy to teach.  I also look forward to the expansion to the game which apparently will involve puddings and Jello.  It appears that there may be a rematch of this particular game this year in Essen when Angelika will be able to join us as well.  More details on this as they become known.

Fortuna

This is a prototype from Friedemann Friese.  I can really tell you nothing more about it.  I have no pictures to show you either.  All I can tell you is that based on the comments I constantly received from Friedemann as I played it, he thinks that I’m a complete idiot OR I didn’t really understand what I was supposed to do in the game until about the last third.  In any event, it is a cool game and I hope that it makes it to production.  If I am given permission to speak more of it in the future, I will – because I really liked it.

Well, that gets us through March – and I think that this would be a good time to stop.  More on the rest of the games in coming weeks! 

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

© 2007 Dale Yu

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In case it wasn’t clear, I didn’t actually make it up to Columbus until Saturday.  The first two games - Volle Wolle and Pirates on the High Seas - were played at my house with people from the Gathering that I had specially imported for that purpose D Posted by Dale Yu on Apr 11, 2007 at 01:07 PM | #

I’m intrigued by “The Pie Game,” in particular your pre-release playtest copy that featured “Bumbleberry.” What exactly is a bumbleberry? Regardless, sounds like you had a great time.  I remember *almost* pulling the trigger on importing the “$100 shooty pirate ship game” back in October, but figured I couldn’t justify it to the wife.  Does Pirates on the High Seas come with English components? Posted by Jon Theys on Apr 11, 2007 at 03:29 PM | #

1) Bumbleberry is a mixed fruit pie.  It includes Apples, rhubarb, red raspberries and blackberries 2) The pirate game is in fact the English edition released by Ravensburger.  The rules are in english, and all of the other pieces are language independent.  The mission cards have symbols only.  And I have it on good authority that German pirates say things like “Aaarrgh” just like us American pirates.  And the game isn’t $100.  It’s $63.95 at Funagain right now (and in stock).  It’s fun, but unless you have kids, i’m not sure if it’s worth the price tag. D Posted by Dale Yu on Apr 11, 2007 at 04:07 PM | #

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