Frank Branham: Absence, RSI, Robot Martini games

(For the next few weeks, I'll be doing rather shorter bits. I've been both caught up in work as well as hit with tendonitis in my wrists. While the wrist braces I am now wearing for work are helping, long typing sessions in the braces are rather difficult.)

I do like it when people send me free games. Some of them end up being games I would have happily bought myself (Battlelore), some end up being obscure gems (Neuroshima Hex), and some I end up not reviewing.

At the Gathering, I tried to buy the Robot Martini Sushi Project collection of games and was promptly rebuffed by Dave Chalker who handed me the lot. I've played through most of them, and they are pretty much games. I have always like the old Cheapass idea of making incredibly cheap, tiny card games with reasonable play and bizarre themes. Robot Martini's designs are just a little cleaner and just a little cleverer than the old Cheapass games.

The problem is, they lean heavily on set collection bonuses and blind bidding/bluffing. I've played so many light card games in this style that I have trouble even distinguishing the individual games.

Two of their games, however, do stand out:

Nerd Trivia: This is a pretty basic trivia game based on a single deck of cards. It has three things that make it stand out.

1. Each card has an extremely geeky topic: Comics, Star Trek, RPGs, Lord of the Rings. The questions are clearly aimed at fandom sorts.
   
   
2. After reading the topic and difficulty, each player chooses a person at the table who is likely to answer correctly. You often end up getting more points by figuring out who is the specialist geek in a category than answering the question.
   
   
3. You actually want to choose the person who was least picked by other people but who can answer the question correctly. In our table of geeks, we had one freak who could answer nearly everything, and a couple of us with specializations.

The only downside is that the game consists of only 48 trivia questions. That means it is good for about three or four games. (Or one extended game. We couldn't really stop playing and tore through the whole deck in one sitting.)

I don't have a problem with paying $4 for a couple of hours of a good and unique trivia game. I just wish there were more.

Criminals: Kory Heath set out to make Werewolf for fewer than eight people. The end result is quite interesting. It isn't Werewolf, but it has some elements of its own.

Each player is given a crime that they committed, with the remaining crime being assigned to The Crime Boss. In general, the players win if they figure out what the Cirme Boss is guilty of. An individual player can also win if they are accused of a crime, and they can work out the real perpetrator of the crime.

The game round consists of a simple series of accusations. A crime is turned up, and the players accuse one of them of having committed the crime. This part entirely resembles Werewolf: discussion, accusation, vote. If the person is innocent, they use a duplicate crime card turned up in front of them to indicate that they are innocent of that crime.

Thus, the new part of Criminals is a light deduction game. There is now tangible information with the turned up crime cards. As the game goes on, these become much more important.

Where Criminals is not as good as Werewolf is that players have no reserves of hidden information about other people. In Werewolf, the Seer, Werewolves, Cupido, and other special characters know hidden information about the other characters. Much of the game revolves around working out and hiding the behavior of people who are dealing with, communicating, and hiding this extra information.

There are occasional insights of people who can't lie easily, and some of the roleplaying and bluffing aspects of Werewolf are still there.

If you make it to the endgame of Criminals, the array of visible information and hints of behavior from the early part of the game create something that is quite akin to Werewolf, but different in ways I'm not as comfortable with.

The actual rules for determining the winner are quite obtuse. It takes a couple of readings of the rules to understand them and perhaps a few plays to teach them. The rules are well written, but the odd collection of victory conditions that drive the game are rather more complex than the intuitive Werewolf rules.

The thing is, Criminals is still a fully functional Werewolf-like game for fewer people. I know of really only one other game that tried to trek down that path. (It was called Beest, produced in a limited edition by Splotter. Beest doesn't really work, although it does have a whole Who Goes There/The Thing vibe going for it. )
© 2007 Frank Branham

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Comments:

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Eek!  Beest!!  The only game where the Box can win--and usually did! Posted by Larry Levy on Jul 5, 2007 at 09:15 AM | #

You played Beest more than once? Posted by Frank Branham on Jul 5, 2007 at 09:29 AM | #

Re: I’ve been hit with tendonitis in my wrists. While the wrist braces I am now wearing for work are helping, long typing sessions in the braces are rather difficult. Just a FYI. I used to have problems with my wrists for typing. One of the things that helped me was the Kinesis Advantage Pro keyboard. It is the standard layout, but with bowls so that all keys are the same distance from your fingers and your thumbs do most of the common work. Many people at work use them. http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage.htm Posted by Sterling Babcock on Jul 5, 2007 at 12:39 PM | #

Beest was played several times by various individuals in our group, Frank, if memory serves.  I’m pretty sure no one played it more than one time!  Guess that’s all you have to say about it. Posted by Larry Levy on Jul 5, 2007 at 02:54 PM | #

Frank: I have a friend who sings praises of his Maltron keyboard (http://www.maltron.com). It looks very similar to the Kinesis AP that Sterling suggested, but I know that the Maltron comes programmed with Qwerty, Dvorak, and Maltron (their proprietary letter arrangement—apparently superior to Dvorak). I have not used either keyboard, so can’t knowledgeably comment on actual usability. Larry: Hmm, I think in Beest having the Box win sounds very close to in Terra having everybody lose (or having Pollution/Chaos win… whatever it is… I haven’t played the game yet) as can happen. Just my $0.02. :) Posted by Matt Ackerson on Jul 5, 2007 at 06:33 PM | #

You don’t understand, Matt--the box won because it didn’t have to play the game!  :-) Posted by Larry Levy on Jul 5, 2007 at 07:45 PM | #

Oh! Oops, my bad, Larry. I obviously haven’t played Beest either. That’ll teach me not to make assumptions.  :-) Posted by Matt Ackerson on Jul 5, 2007 at 08:07 PM | #

Of course, I’d like to do a full blown Nerd Trivia game with hundreads of questions (and probably have some fun writing all the questions) and better components, but it’s such a niche game I’m not sure who to pitch it to. But I’m glad you liked it for those few hours! Posted by Dave Chalker on Jul 6, 2007 at 09:34 AM | #

Not to coopt the gaming thread to talk of RSI topics, but I have something to add.... I used to be nearly crippled with RSI (and I’m not using hyperbole here; there were many nights when I could not hold a mug because I had no strength in my hands).  The key for me in getting over the injuries was mice and elbows. Mice - I stopped using it as much as I possibly could.  It wasn’t the keyboard that was killing me, it was the mouse!  There are many things that are impossible to do without a mouse, but that’s the only time I use one.  For everything else, there’s a keyboard. Elbows - my other main problem was that I was always resting my elbows on something.  Putting pressure on the nerve (or whatever) in the elbow joint that connected to the wrist and the hand caused almost as much pain as the damn mouse did.  I’m now very conscious of where my elbow is (or isn’t) now, and it’s been a good 15 years since I’ve had major issues. Sure, there’s an occasional flare-up.  And I can almost always attribute it to one of those two factors.  I guess the whole point of this is just because the wrist is hurting, doesn’t mean the cause of the injury is there. I hope you find peace! Posted by Joe Casadonte on Jul 9, 2007 at 04:15 PM | #

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