Greg J. Schloesser:  The inevitable and inescapable Gathering report

Yes, you’ve already been inundated with an avalanche of “Gathering of Friendsâ€? reports.  You’ve probably already read in-depth dissections of the latest games, learning which ones are destined for greatness and which ones will soon be forgotten.  Well, get ready for one more.  Sorry about that.

Before I give my brief synopsis of the “newâ€? games I played, let me once again extend my thanks to Alan Moon for hosting another fantastic event.  While the games were fantastic, the highlight was once again spending time with some truly wonderful folks.  I spent quite a bit of time socializing, enjoying dinner and lunch excursions, playing basketball, and just plain chatting with good people.  I renewed old friendships, and met many people for the first time.  Sadly, with over 300 people in attendance, I didn’t have the chance to spend time with everyone, or meet all of the new folks in attendance.  That is the biggest downer for me:  not getting to spend time with everyone.

A few of the major non-gaming highlights:

Basketball:  For the past four years, a group of us have met at a local gym to enjoy some hoops.  Our first year saw our one and only major injury:  Marty Hoff’s broken wrist.  Curiously, he has never rejoined us on the court.  In spite of his absence, we continue to have a super time.  This year, we managed three consecutive full-court games, and a six of us remained behind for one more half-court game.  My legs were sore for days!

Schmidt’s Sausage Haus:  On Thursday night, a group of us traveled the old Germantown district of Columbus for a fantastic German meal.  The frivolity was heightened by the presence of a um-pah band, who had fun interacting with our group.  This place now goes on my “must visitâ€? list for future Gatherings.

OK … on to the games.  I won’t recap all of the games I played, just the ones that are fairly new releases or relatively unknown.  Mind you, these are INITIAL impressions, and further playings may well change my opinion.

ZIG ZAG:  When I arrived, I chatted awhile with several folks, including my good buddy James Miller.  James always arrives at gaming conventions early, so he had the opportunity to play many of the new games before I arrived on Monday evening.  I asked his opinion on the new games, and he warned me that I would likely not enjoy this one.  Later that evening, I readily agreed to join Brian Yu in a game, and was shocked to discover it was the game James warned me about. 

While not terrible, there really isn’t much here.  Each player receives several cards, which are laid end-to-end, forming a path.  The objective is to quickly reveal and grab cards required to complete you path.  Each path has numerous possible routes, with some spaces being rarer in the card deck.  The “real-timeâ€? aspect of the game didn’t bother me much.  What really bothered me was the simplicity of the game.  While turning cards, I simply looked for the cards I needed amongst those being revealed by my opponents and quickly grabbed them.  I won handily.  The game just wasn’t very exciting or challenging … or fun.  My rating:  4.

MARVIN MARVEL’S MARVELOUS MARBLE MACHINE:  From the folks who brought us Knockabout and Warp 6 comes “5Mâ€?, a game that has similar mechanisms as Dragons of Kir, a game I thoroughly enjoy.  Players place various mechanisms onto the board, attempting to influence the movement of the various marbles and steering them to their goal.  While there is a healthy dose of randomness based on the tiles you draw, there is also considerable challenge in placing these tiles to achieve the desired results.  Rating:  7

CRYSTAL FAIRE:  The latest from designer Alan Ernstein, who brought us Tuhuantinsuyu and Ars Mysteriorum.  Alan touted this one as a “bluffingâ€? game, and there is certainly truth to that assertion.  However, it has more going for it than that, as I am not a fan of bluffing as a central mechanism.  Players make and accept offers of gems, and attempt to favorably manipulate the value of the gems they are collecting.  While lighter than Alan’s previous two releases, I enjoyed Crystal Faire.  Rating:  7

THURN & TAXIS:  This is the game that was generating the most positive buzz.  Designed by Andreas Seyfarth (Puerto Rico, San Juan, Manhattan), players attempt to establish post offices along various routes.  While this isn’t the second-coming of Puerto Rico, and there are some concerns being expressed over “perfectâ€? strategies, I thoroughly enjoyed my first playing and found the decisions interesting, but not overly taxing.  Rating:  7.5

AUGSBURG 1520:  I am always interested and excited to play whatever game Steffan Brueck and Alea is releasing.  Steffan is a superb developer, and I’ve enjoyed nearly all of the games he has released under the Alea label.  Augsburg involves a series of auctions, hoping to gain the favor of various court personalities.  While a bit repetitive, the bids are all revealed simultaneously, which makes them quick.  Players then choose which favors they desire.  I found the game intriguing, although not as fascinating as some of Alea’s meatier titles.  Rating:  7.5

MAUER BAUER:  Another Hans im Gluck title, with players adding walls and towns to the board by the play of cards.  The idea is to merge walled villages, triggering scoring opportunities that give the player the most points.  There are some complaints that players will have numerous plays during the game which are not favorable.  I can see this, but there are also many opportunities to perform clever maneuvers.  I’m not fully sold on the game, but do want to play again.  Rating:  6.5

UND KRONE UND KRAGEN:  Termed “Yahtzee: The Gatheringâ€?, a fairly accurate description.  Players attempt to roll various number combinations and acquire court personalities.  These personalities will allow you to manipulate further rolls, all in search of acquiring the services of the king.  While others enjoyed it, I found there to be too many personalities, and too many possible dice combinations.  Rating:  5

CLEOPATRA AND THE SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTS:  The game was universally praised for its outstanding production, but received lukewarm response for game play.  While not the pinnacle of gaming, I found it quite compelling, offering numerous interesting options and choices.  I think it will make an excellent vehicle for introducing folks new to gaming, and has enough to keep veteran gamers interested.  Rating 7

INDONESIA: I purchased this Splotter title at Essen, but never felt comfortable enough with the rules to try to teach it to others.  Fortunately, Mario Lanza had played twice previously, and taught me the game.  The good news is that the game is quite good, although the board does get cluttered near the end.  Further, there is an awful lot of calculating and number crunching, which can cause things to drag.  The bad news is that due to some deep thinking and over-analyzing, our game dragged on and on, lasting six hours.  I do believe it can be played in four hours with most groups.  I won’t play it often, but will be happy when I do.  Rating:  7

TSURO:  Several folks were singing the praises of this fast game that can accommodate up to eight players.  It has much in common with Metro, with players laying tiles, hoping to keep their path alive, while terminating the paths of their opponents.  With eight players, there isn’t much control, but it was fun.  Rating:  6

CHINESE WALL: Reiner Knizia continues to recycle ideas from his earlier titles.  I found this one had many similarities with his earlier releases Tabula Rasa and Schotten Totten.  The game was perfectly playable and there were no obvious flaws, but it simply lacked excitement.  Someone else mentioned that it had “no soulâ€?, and I must agree.  Rating:  6

FISCHMARKT: From the designer of Feudo and Sienna comes a decidedly lighter game wherein players must trade fish, hoping to reap huge profits when sold at the market.  There is a LOT of randomness here, and one can enjoy a financial boom or bust on the turn of a card.  I enjoyed it, but recognize serious flaws in the game’s design.  Rating:  6

BLUE MOON CITY:  I played this one twice, and neither playing impressed me.  Based on the 2-player card game, this spin-off has players scurrying from tile-to-tile and playing cards to in attempts to flip the tile to its enchanted side.  Flipping the tile rewards players with crystals, cards, and/or dragon scales.  The ultimate goal is to acquire enough crystals to add four gems to the central obelisk, thereby claiming victory.  I just didn’t find the game terribly challenging.  Collect cards, travel to the appropriate sites, and enchant.  I just didn’t have fun in either playing.  Rating:  6

WAYFINDER: This was a self-published title by Benjamin Cortiss.  The theme was very loose, with islanders being scattered by terrible storms.  Players had to move these islanders in a straight path, dropping off one per island.  The idea was to accumulate islanders of a like color – hopefully your own – onto an island and form a village.  There was considerable thought involved, but options did decrease as the game progressed.  I won, and wasn’t satisfied that I was doing anything clever, or anything more than my opponents were doing.  I need to play again.  Rating:  5.5

HART AN DER GRENZE:  Smuggling goods across the border sounded like it could be loads of fun.  However, no one really knew the rules, and in spite of Mik Svellov’s best efforts to teach us, confusion reigned.  I did see enough, however, to know that the central mechanism is bluffing.  Players place legal items and sometimes contraband into their suitcases, then bluff by telling the current sheriff what they are carrying.  He can call one player’s bluff, and collect money if they are caught smuggling.  It is guesswork, pure and simple, and simply not my style.  Rating:  3 (and it is only that high due to the ability to use mangled Mexican accents).

MEN AND WOMEN:  I thoroughly enjoy Simply Fun’s Eye to Eye, and it has quickly risen to one of my favorite party games.  I heard that Men and Women from Uwe Rosenberg was similar, so I was anxious to try it.  Well, it is VERY similar – so similar, I am surprised that there are no ethical violations here.  The main difference is an initially confusing scoring system and numerous questions that are decidedly risqué.  I much prefer Eye to Eye, as it is maddening to have your best score canceled.  Plus, due to the nature of many of the questions, it will limit the groups with which I could play it. Rating:  5.5

ROCKETVILLE:  In spite of the game being universally panned, I just had to try it, mainly because it was being released by Avalon Hill.  Players compete in election-after-election, which consists of nothing more than each player simultaneously revealing a card.  The big problem is that more often than not, you don’t even have a proper card in which to compete in an election.  It is an exercise in near total randomness.  Richard Garfield should be ashamed to have his name on this release.  Rating:  2

MISSION PLANETTE ROUGE:  The theme of traveling to Mars in order to mine its resources is reasonably unique an interesting, and the components of this Asmodee release are quite good.  Designer Bruno Faidutti adopts a mechanism similar to Citadels, wherein each turn players select a character to employ, using his special power.  As can be expected from a Faidutti title, there is a healthy dose of randomness, particularly with the discovery cards.  Still, I found the game quite fun, and found that my decisions truly did matter.  Rating:  7

DU BALAI:  Michael Green was singing the praises of this game, wherein players must quickly recognize patterns on rolled dice and then match this pattern after the dice are concealed.  Again, this just isn’t my style.  Rating:  5

DIABOLO:  This is a very light, reasonably fast card game from Michael Schacht.  Players play cards of five different suits, trying to drive scores to the negative (hell) or positive (heaven) side.  Points are earned when a player elects to score a particular suit, but only if he has the most cards remaining in his hand of that suit.  In this respect, it reminded me of Honey Bears, but it is no where near as good.  This is a harmless filler, but I already have enough harmless fillers.  Rating:  5

AQUADUCT:  While the dice rolling can cause feast or famine, I found this game of attempting to have one’s fields irrigated to be quite fun.  The game does have striking similarities to Santiago, but the randomness here is more prevalent.  However, deciding which tiles to play and in which location can be tough, and deciding which action to conduct on your turn is also occasionally taxing.  I like it!  Rating:  7

TIMES SQUARE:  I don’t normally have the opportunity to play 2-player games very often, so I usually don’t seek to play them at conventions.  However, several folks informed me that this Reiner Knizia design was quite good, so I made sure I played before departing.  It has some similarities to Richard Borg’s How Ruck, as players attempt to lure the sultry singer to their side of the board.  It is a tug-of-war affair, but it really comes down to who has the best cards at the right time.  It was fun, but luck will likely rule in this one.  Rating:  6

I also played several prototypes, but cannot discuss these here.  I will say that Kris Gould’s Fruit Fight and Kevin Nunn’s Zong Shi are both quite good.  Kris will be self-publishing his game, while Kevin is searching for a publisher.

© 2006 Greg Schloesser

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Nothing higher than a 7.5? On the bright side, at least nothing was lower than a 2. Posted by Brian Waters on Apr 22, 2006 at 08:17 AM | #

I enjoyed my one playing of Hart An Der Grenze. There’s a game there, not just an excuse to talk in a funny accent. I guess it depends on the group, but I enjoyed my one playing, taught another group to play (it filled up so I didn’t play) and I saw someone from that group starting another game the next day. Kevin Gonzalez put his DA skills to great use in our game. When he asks “Sir, do you have anything in that bag you’d like to tell me about?” you tell him! Posted by Ward Batty on Apr 22, 2006 at 10:11 AM | #

I’ll second Ward’s positive comments about Hart An Der Grenze.  We had a full complement of 6 players and had a great time, getting into the spirit of the game and laughing often enough to make it an ‘experience game’ highlight of the week. Posted by Doug Garrett on Apr 22, 2006 at 10:18 AM | #

The warning sign in Greg’s review of Hart an der Grenze is “However, no one really knew the rules, and in spite of Mik Svellov’s best efforts to teach us, confusion reigned.” Yes, the game involves a lot of bluffing, but it’s not “guesswork, pure and simple” as you do need to consider the endgame scoring and proper use of your bonus markers. I enjoyed my single play with six players and would be fine playing this every few months as it’s definitely an experience game. Still, if you don’t like bluffing games, you should probably steer clear. Posted by W. Eric Martin on Apr 22, 2006 at 03:26 PM | #

A qualifying comment to that on Blue Moon City. Based on the same background etc. (and artwork) but in pure game terms quite a different beast. About the only common mechanic is that Khind cards are best in groups and Mimix cards in pairs. Posted by Christopher Dearlove on Apr 23, 2006 at 03:43 PM | #

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