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Larry Levy: Gathering Memories—The Games (Part 1)
Unlike years past, I’d done a pretty good job of getting to play most of the 2007 titles I wanted to prior to the Gathering. And I didn’t think there was a huge number of riveting games coming out of Nuremburg. So I was quite surprised at how many new games I played in Columbus: over 20 new-to-me designs. That, combined with the very large number of prototypes I played over the course of the week, meant I played relatively few older games, which was just fine with me.
Here are my quick impressions on the new games I played. Time permitting, I’ll try to post some more complete reviews in the days to come. None of the new designs blew me away, but most of them were worth playing and I can see a few entering the regular rotation in my game group. Unless otherwise indicated, I only played each of these games once. I’ve also included an initial rating for each game, just to give some idea of how much it appealed to me.
Stone Age - (2 times) Lighter worker placement game that was one of the hits of the week. There seems to be plenty of potential strategies and active discussion on the best way to play, which is always a good sign. The game is quite easy to learn and very approachable. The luck of the dice can be a factor (I still say averaging dice would have improved the game slightly), but I don’t think it comes close to dominating the game. I’m a little disappointed that the harder-to-get resources don’t give you a bonus when they’re cashed in (the game is very logically designed, much like Brunnhofer’s Saint Petersburg), but it isn’t a very big deal. Not a great game, but an enjoyable one that should fill a niche. I can see this resonating with my group, as most of the more popular worker resource games (like Caylus and Pillars) haven’t really struck a nerve with us (Agricola is the exception). Rating: 7.5.
Tribun - I liked it, but I’m rather surprised so many have raved about it after just one play, because it takes quite a while to figure out what you need to do. I kind of went through the motions in the first half of my game, then got the thread and came very close to winning. It’s definitely a Schmiel game, with lots of differing mechanics working together in a synergistic, but not exactly elegant, whole. The theme keeps it from being an abstract, but unlike Agricola, there’s no immersion in that theme—it’s more like, “I’ll play my piece here to win this card to help me take this area, to allow me to acquire this counter, to satisfy this winning condition”. This will be a turn-off for some, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem for me as long as the game turns out to have the depth many have claimed it has. My rating could very well rise once I become more familiar with the strategy; this and possibly Amyitis are the only games I played that might turn out to be great. Rating: 7.5.
Amyitis - Another game with an awful lot going on, but somewhat easier to get into than Tribun, possibly because things start out slower. It’s yet another very good Ystari design, with many strategies and tightly meshed mechanics. Maybe nothing truly innovative, but lots of things affecting other things, so that working out a strategy is a fun challenge. I’ll probably need to play this at least a couple of more times to really be sure what I think of it, but I definitely enjoyed my first game, so I have no reason to think this one will fade for me. It’ll have to come closer to its listed duration of 75 minutes to really shine (my game took close to two hours), but with familiarity, I can see that happening. For some reason, this hasn’t gotten the acclaim you’d expect a new Ystari to receive, but I’d recommend trying it out if you have the chance. Rating: 7.5.
Shanghaien - One of the better surprises of the week was this two-player game from Michael Schacht and Roman Pelek (the co-designer of Santiago). The rules are quite simple, but there’s some very nice touches and it works out to an enjoyable and tense struggle that takes no more than 20 minutes. One of the many games that used dice and even though their implementation was straightforward, they added to the variability and fun of the game. The point scoring (the player winning the majority of each color scores points equal to what his opponent gathered in that color) is reminiscent of Web of Power and is vintage Schacht. I don’t know if there is an English language publisher for this yet, but even if none appears (unlikely, I’d say), the game is language independent. It’s nice to get excited about a Schacht game again; for me, this is his best design since 2004’s Hansa. Rating: 7.5.
Oregon - Well designed, but pretty abstract placement game. Working out combinations that give you big points is enjoyable and although you can get hosed a bit by the luck of the draw, you have reasonable control over your destiny. It feels something like Carcassonne without the tiles, if that makes any sense, but this works much better (for me, at least) as a multi-player game than the Wrede classic does. I’m not sure it’s quite good or distinctive enough to make the rotation, but I’ll happily play it and might even suggest it, particularly with a mixed group. Rating: 7-7.5.
Ticket to Ride Card Game - (2 times) There’s cards with trains and tickets to fill, but this plays nothing like any of the other games in the series. Instead, it’s a set collecting game with an elegant “harvesting” mechanic that allows you to add cards to your scoring pile. My miserable memory usually has me avoiding games with a memory element, but this seems to work more like Mamma Mia, where you’re best served by an intuition of what you have, rather than precise tracking (at least, that’s what worked best for me). Alternatively, you could always allow peeking, but that might slow the game down too much. Both my games were with four and I suspect three might be the sweet spot, although I’ll have to try that out to see. This is just the kind of small game Alan Moon does so well, as he once again builds on the concepts in one of his earlier designs. Rating: 7.
Toledo - Solid Wallace middleweight, with numerous nice design touches. There’s a little more luck than I usually like, as both the card draws and the duels depend on it, but it’s really quite acceptable in a game of this weight. I went most of my game without anyone visiting any of my businesses, which would be hard to do even if you tried, but I made some poor decisions and probably had some bad luck with the cards my opponents were getting. Still, it would be interesting to see how much strategy can be applied to where you place your tiles so that other players will use them. Certainly, working out a path for yourself is a key element to winning. This might wind up to be too light for gamers and too complex for families, but it’s a good enough game to gain an audience, so hopefully it will be successful. It also wouldn’t surprise me if there’s more game here than initially meets the eye. Rating: 7.
Risk Express - Knizia scores again with a dice game. This is a reasonably simple twist on the classic Yahtzee mechanics, but the basic system is clever, the territories are well balanced and introduce a good deal of variability, and the game plays fast. Best of all, it successfully introduces player interaction into a dice game, as stealing a territory from a player is a challenging, but necessary tactic. Even though good judgment with how you allocate your dice is useful, there’s less skill required here than in most of the other fine dice games that have appeared recently. But the game more than makes up for it by its boisterous play—I can’t imagine playing this without tons of smack talk. Sadly, this filler is only available in Europe. Rating: 7.
Hanging Gardens - Abstract placement game with a spatial puzzle element. Those two things tend to be negatives for me, but the game plays quite well and was one of the more popular titles at the con. I think the puzzle aspect will be especially attractive to many gamers. Even though there’s no time pressure, people just like noodling with the cards to work out a good scoring. The luck factor is fairly high, as when cards come out (and whether particularly valuable cards come out at all) can affect play significantly. On the whole, not the sort of game that usually grabs me, but I enjoyed my one session and wouldn’t mind playing again. Rating: 7.
Those were the games I played that I liked the best while at the Gathering. I’ll summarize the rest of the new games I played in my next report.
© 2008 Larry Levy
Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 21, 2008 at 01:20 AM in Special Features, Articles / 1388
Comments:
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Talking about Stone Age, Larry wrote: “I’m a little disappointed that the harder-to-get resources don’t give you a bonus when they’re cashed in...” Some of the scoring tiles let you cash in a certain number of resources with the points being scored equal to the value of the resources, so going for the gold can pay off big if you get a chance to grab those tiles. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Apr 21, 2008 at 01:37 AM | #
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That’s true, Eric, but gold is twice as hard to get as wood and is worth twice as much. In this regard, all of the resources are equivalent. I understand that you’re better off in the case you describe with gold, since you’re getting the biggest bang for the buck from your action of choosing the tile, but I kind of thought it would be nice to consistently slightly reward the players who go after the tougher resources (the cheap resources already have their own bonus, since they’re useful when buying the cards). Not a big deal and more symptomatic of Brunnhofer’s design style than anything else. Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 21, 2008 at 02:17 AM | #
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Somehow I completely missed Shanghaien--it looks interesting, so thanks for pointing it out. Oregon was interesting, and I thought about it quite a lot afterwards. I definitely want to give this one another try. An interesting anecdote about Tribun… during my learning game, the Zero cards were described as simply cards that gave you a bonus because they were the lowest value card. However, while checking the rules so I could teach to others, I saw that these cards were Leaders. That made so much more sense and added a lot more to the theme. Adding a memory element to the TTR card game makes this game too dissimilar to the original, IMHO. We played with 4 players and used the mid-game scoring rules, which seemed to really throw off the game and run counter to the spirit of the game. And lastly, it was great finally meeting you! Posted by Kevin Wood on Apr 21, 2008 at 08:29 AM | #
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Hmm… Ratings --
7.5
Please tell me you’re going in order from top to bottom of your ratings list… Else, you’ve given us no indication at all of what you like or don’t like! Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Apr 21, 2008 at 08:50 AM | #
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It was great meeting you too, Kevin. I was actually happy that the TtR Card Game differed significantly from the base game. Not because I dislike TtR, but because I like to see different mechanics in spinoffs. It does seem as if the game was designed for 2 or 3 and that the 4 player rules were added later. I think it works with 4, but might be a “purer” game with less. Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 21, 2008 at 09:50 AM | #
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Well, yeah, Dale, it’s an ordered list. But I would have thought the ratings were a pretty strong indicator of my feelings about the games! Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 21, 2008 at 09:58 AM | #
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Thanks, Larry, for the info.
Posted by Marc Gilutin on Apr 21, 2008 at 10:34 AM | #
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Larry - thanks for your article! I pretty much agree with you on Stone Age, Hanging Gardens, and Toledo. My one play of the TtR Card Game was only a 2-player game, so I probably came away with a far different experience. Would you say that with 3-4 players that it was a much meaner game than TtR? I could definitely see where players would trump (and wipe out) a previous player’s 3- or 4-card play whenever they could, and the 3 single-card play not being used very often. Was that the case in your games? Posted by Derek Jung on Apr 21, 2008 at 12:03 PM | #
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Not too much, Derek. It has the potential to happen (I lost one game because an opponent took out one of my longish melds unexpectedly--it turned out I was one card short of the win). But for much of my games, players got good returns from their melds and usually only blew away opponents’ melds when it happened to fit in with their strategy. Even 3 single card melds seem to do well, usually scoring for 2 or 3 of the cards (the problem is getting to place them, as there’s usually a decent number of melds on the table). However, Alan told me that a strong strategy is to build up your cards and then to knock off opponents’ melds whenever they appear. That would obviously make for a bloodier game and I’m not sure I’d care for the game of chicken that would develop if more than one player followed that path. Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 21, 2008 at 12:51 PM | #
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What? No mention of the “Journey of the Center of the Earth” game? What a game! A clear highlight of the Gathering! :o) Posted by Greg Schloesser on Apr 21, 2008 at 02:04 PM | #
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Uh, that gets mentioned in the second list, Greg. Fairly far DOWN in the second list, I’m afraid! (Thank goodness the company was good, so it wasn’t a total loss!) Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 21, 2008 at 02:30 PM | #
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Actually, due to floor division, gold is more than twice as hard to get than wood. For example, expected value on three dice for wood is 3.2, for gold it’s 1.3. Posted by Jay Bloodworth on Apr 21, 2008 at 08:39 PM | #
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Well, that ratings range pretty much sums up my take on the new games at the Gathering as well. Of the best games I played there only Agricola was one I hadn’t played previously, the other bests were all games I knew (Race, E&T, TtA). There were some intriguing prototypes though, and very few stinkers. Posted by Brian Leet on Apr 21, 2008 at 11:20 PM | #
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Thanks for the update, Larry. I’m particularly interested in trying Stone Age and Amyitis ... might have to put in another European order! Posted by Melissa Rogerson on Apr 22, 2008 at 08:55 AM | #
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Larry wrote, “That’s true, Eric, but gold is twice as hard to get as wood and is worth twice as much. In this regard, all of the resources are equivalent.” Dave Bernazzani kindly taught me this Monday night. Based on one play, I think gold is more than twice as hard to get. Here’s my thinking: a roll of one die has a 3 out of 6 chance of getting you one wood resource (rolling 3, 4 or 5) and a 1 out of 6 chance of getting two resources (rolling a 6). Going for gold with one die you have only a 1 out of 6 chance of getting one gold. So I think in practice gold ends up undervalued in the game. Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Apr 23, 2008 at 09:59 PM | #
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