|
|
|
|
David Fair: One Is the Loneliest Number: Part One: Long-Distance Love Affairs
Every year, a lot of gamers talk about their “Five and Dime List�. I usually find the first couple of them interesting, especially if the writer has taken time to add a little commentary to the list. After a while though, you just scan them looking for pithy commentary. I thought it would be an interesting change of pace to examine the 151 games that I played only once each during 2005. These 151 games fall into several different categories, and over the next few articles, I will examine each of them.
Part One: Long-Distance Love Affairs. (16 games)
One of the benefits of traveling to a gaming con is that you can get the opportunity to play a game that no one in your local circle owns. Of course, then you have the problem that you fall in love with a game, but have no way to play it again. These are the games I played once, enjoyed, and would like to play again, but none of my local gaming buddies own them and I haven’t (yet) been able to add them to The Wall. Also in this category fall prototypes that aren’t published yet.
The Prototypes
I had the opportunity to play several prototypes last year, and most of them fall into the “One Play� category.
You Must be An Idiot, by Stephen Glenn has been published by R&R Games since I played it in prototype form. I haven’t picked it up the published version yet, but I plan to do so soon. Stephen has created a great party game that combines trivia, deduction, and bluffing in a Werewolf-like style.
Another prototype I really enjoyed was the expansion for Boomtown that I played with Larry Whalen and David Hurd of Face to Face games. It was a terrific expansion that took a fun game that was often just a little too short into a very fun game that was just right. I have been itching for it ever since.
Ted Cheatam made two different prototypes that I liked. One was a light and quick filler about pyramid building, and the other a game about space mining. Both were good, but the second one, tentatively called “Nebula’s Hordeâ€?, really appealed to me and I look forward to seeing it in print. If I recall correctly, it was designed in collaboration with Bruno Faidutti.
Race to the Galaxy by Tom Lehmann has been discussed online, and most people who are fans of Brian Bankler’s Tao of Gaming will recognize the name. We can all hope that the plans for its publication this year come to pass, as this is one great game that I predict will rise in the BGG rankings with Caylus-like speed. It could even end up the highest rated card game on BGG (Currently San Juan, at #32, holds this title).
Take Stock, by Simon Hunt, is a stock manipulation game. Last I heard, Z-Man was publishing this, and I thought it was a really good take on the subject, with a lot of game play options you don’t often see in stock games. I always appreciate a new take on a familiar subject, and I like economic games a great deal, so this is on my watch-for list.
Morrocco by Steve Zamborsky is trading/economic game. I am not sure what the publishing status of the game is at this point, but I would welcome the opportunity to play it again. Trading and economic games are pretty familiar territory to most of us by this point, but Steve Zamborsky has managed to get some interesting ideas into the game, and ends up emphasizing aspects of the whole model that usually get glossed over, giving the theme a little new life.
Now, lest you get the idea that I am simply an easy sell, there were three prototypes I didn’t really care much for. Since prototypes can change drastically before getting published, I won’t mention the two still-unpublished games here. The third has been published, and while I haven’t played the published version, I did read the rules. Since there appears to be no change from the version I played, I give you my thoughts on Fiese Freunde Fette Feten.
Friedemann Friese is a great game designer. I love FreshFish and PowerGrid ranks high in my top ten games of all-time. His newest offering has sparked a lot of discussion online, and most of you have likely seen discussion about it before. It’s more than a little racy, and sprinkled with humor and art not really appropriate for kids. I thought the game itself was merely OK, heavily luck-dependant with potential runaway leader problems. It really is more of an experience game than a game of deep strategy, and while I don’t have a problem with the racier aspects of the game, my problem is that I would have almost no place to actually play the game.
I play most of my games in my home or in the homes of friends, and we all have kids who are around when we play, or older kids (late teens, early twenties) who take part in the gaming. This would not be appropriate to play at those times, or with those players. The rest of the regular gaming I do is in public, and I can’t control who is around, so again, not appropriate. In fact, the only time I could realistically expect to play it is late nights at cons. Given that I like Werewolf and Poker both a great deal more than this game, and they are both late-night con staples, I just don’t see the need to own it. I might play it again given the chance, but I would be much more likely to seek out a villager or a chip stack to devour instead.
The Published Games
These are the games that are now in print, or have been in print, that I only played once last year, despite liking them a great deal
Hossa is a fun party game by Andrea Meyer. It’s all about naming and singing songs and getting the other players to join you in singing them. I love music and have absolutely no talent, so with this I can be obnoxious and sing in public and no one can stop me. Unfortunately, it is a little hard to get. I do have a small issue in that I can’t really play this at our game nights at Borders (it might disturb the other patrons to have to listen to my singing). To play at my friend Bob’s house, I would have to convince him to lift the blanket “no-singingâ€? rule instituted against rampant singing during regular game play. Oh well, I have other places to play, and I go to enough cons where this would be a great late-night game choice.
When Alan D. Ernstein taught me Junk Yard he described the game as a trick-taking, tile-laying, connection game with area majority scoring. Well, I know that just sounds like a complete mess, but after playing with Alan and my friend Tami during a trip to Boston last year, I was intrigued. It took a while, but I finally got my brain wrapped around it well enough to figure out why I was losing so badly about two-thirds of the way through the game. I was even able to close the gap, and wound up losing by only a few points rather than a whole mess of them. I like games where people aren’t out of it until the whole thing is over, and Alan certainly accomplished that here.
I haven’t picked it up yet for two main reasons. One, I need to play it again to make sure I can teach it to others. And two, It’s a trick-taking game, of which I have too many already, especially when you take into consideration my wife’s general dislike of trick-taking games.
Mermaid Rain technically doesn’t fall into the “Long Distance Love Affair� category, because two of my local gaming buddies own it, so I don’t really have many excuses for not playing it more often. It does have a vaguely Taj Mahal feel, and it took me a while to grasp Taj, so I expect it will take multiple plays to get up to speed here as well. The guys who own it, like it (obviously), and I enjoyed it, but it has a definite learning curve to get over that makes getting it played again hard. I think once we jump that hurdle, more plays would follow.
Of course, the theme on this one is pretty out-there, and that might have some part in it. Although we play a lot of games with themes at least as odd and never say a word about them. I mean, no one says “Boo� about a game where the theme is retrieving dragon eggs or moving sheep around in a herd, but play one game about being a mermaid looking for her man…
Skyline of the World flew under my radar at Essen last year. I even walked past the booth where they were selling it, looked it over, and moved on. That turned out to be a mistake as the game is quite good. It is a little like Manhattan (the “other� game from Andreas Seyfarth) in that you work to place floors on buildings and attempt to earn the best score. The scoring is different, and the board shape and scoring opportunities force a lot of interaction and competition to get points where you can. I played it on that trip to Boston mentioned earlier, and haven’t been able to play it since.
Walk The Dogs is a nice-looking and fun set-collecting game from designer Alan R. Moon and SimplyFun. It looks a little juvenile, what with all the rubber puppies, and the theme does appeal to kids, but the truth is, it is a really good game. The one time I played, we used a variant that I am told was Alan’s original rule, and it gave some decision angst to each turn. Very enjoyable, and I would already have a copy but for the fact that I haven’t been able to squeeze hosting a SimplyFun party into my schedule.
I played Zoff In Buffalo on a trip to North Carolina last year. It has cows in it, and my wife loves cows, so that gives the game several dozen bonus points right there. Truth is that I would seek it out even without the cows as it was a very fun game with an enjoyable theme, but the cows are the clincher. The game is an area majority game that looks like it would scale well across multiple numbers of players, since you simply add or remove scoring fields based on the number of players in the game. This one is tough to get as it has been out of print for some time, and I’ve heard no talk about a reprint.
There you go. The first 16 games that I played only once last year. Next installment brings us to part two, also known as “Why Can’t You Be More Like Your Brother?�
Coming Soon:
Part Two: Why Can’t You Be More Like Your Brother?
Part Three: No One Will Ever Love You Quite The Way I Do (Apparently)
Part Four: Voted Off the Island
Part Five: I Don’t Know Where We Went Wrong
Part Six: Too Long, Too New, Two Player
