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Larry Levy: Pyramids and Puppies (and other delights)
I got to try out a couple of “new to me� recent releases this week, along with a few older titles. Here’s my impressions on some of these games.
Mykerinos
Four of us got a chance to play Ystari’s latest for the first time. First of all, I may be sadly lacking in my knowledge of Egyptology, but even so, wouldn’t it have been a good idea to mention in the rules exactly who, what, or where Mykerinos was? Turns out he was one of the Egyptian kings, which is pretty much what I figured, but it’s never good when you have to Google a game’s title to find out what it means (even though it was kind of cool to see the game’s Geek entry listed first in the search results).
But I digress. The game itself is quite good and the whole table enjoyed it. I had thought the main tension would be between acquiring cards and reserving choice spaces in the museum. That did work quite well, but the part of the game we all liked the best was the cube play on the parcel cards. This proved to be very interesting and quite challenging—you really had to be careful as one misstep could be costly. This is all the more impressive given the simple rules for cube placement and the fact that the regions are made up of randomly drawn cards, ensuring that each round will feature different challenges. Despite these random placements, each area proved to be consistently interesting to analyze and play.
I’ve heard this described as a light game, but I have to disagree. We all devoted a fair amount of brain power to the cube play. Despite that, the game doesn’t have a heavy feel, which is good. The rules are few and straightforward, so I’d still call it a middleweight game, but I’d put it on the heavy end of that. Possibly folks were expecting a steady supply of heavy games out of Ystari because of Caylus, so this seemed light by contrast. But the weight and duration (it took us about an hour) fit well with the game inside. I’ll always play a game of this weight as long as it includes the number of interesting decisions that Mykerinos does.
I was pleased that the game didn’t feel at all like Louis XIV, despite many similarities in mechanics. I consider Louis the better game, but Mykerinos is simpler to explain and shorter and could easily see as much playing time. I’ve learned over the years not to avoid a game just because of its apparent similarity to another design and once again this proved to be wise policy.
Although it’s still too early to be comparing Ystari to the Aleas of the world, I continue to be impressed by the company’s output. In particular, company president Cyril Demaegd needs to start getting more credit for his ability to either choose or develop these games (or both). This is all the more impressive when you consider that each of their games were created by first-time designers (including Demaegd himself). This trend will continue later this year with the release of Ystari’s fourth game, Yspahan, by newcomer Sébastien Pauchon. Three games isn’t much of a sample size, but they’ve been three very good (or great) games and that kind of consistency and variety isn’t that easy to achieve.
Happy Dog
This is a filler card game from Alan Moon that was released in Japan by Gakken late last year. Due to its country of origin, it’s kind of flown under the radar (hell, it’s flown under the carpet!), so I looked forward to trying this out. We played the first of the two types of games (the Stream game) with five players.
If you didn’t look at the box, you’d probably assume this is a Knizia game. Indeed, the game has a lot of similarities to Reiner designs like Schotten Totten. However, it’s very much its own game. Since few have had the chance to try this one out, let me briefly cover the rules.
Each player has their own deck of 18 cards. 12 of these cards are number cards, with values from 1 to 9, while the other six are special cards. Each player shuffles their deck and draws five cards to form their hand.
Turns are play a card, draw a card. There are a number of rows (about twice as many as there are players) that the cards are played to. Any number can be used to start a row; after that, each succeeding card must differ in value by exactly 1. Half of the special cards are Happy Dog cards, which can always be played and assume a value equal to the higher of the two cards it lies between. Any card can be played after a Happy Dog card. Of the other special cards, the Dragon lets you discard the last card in any row and the Phoenix lets you either take back one of your own cards or freeze a row. The game ends when the players run out of cards to play. Each row is won by the player with the highest value of cards in it. That player wins all the cards in the row. If there is a tie, the cards are split evenly. The winner is the player who captures the most cards.
This is a nice little game. The hand size means your options are often limited, but you usually have a few choices each turn. Hands are also big enough that you can usually save a card or two for an opportune moment. The game is kind of the opposite of Great Wall of China (ironically, a Knizia game) in that you want to get involved in major battles with lots of cards—as long as you can win them! Knowing when to hold them and when to fold them is pretty important, although you can sometimes be at the mercy of the cards you hold. Skillful use of the special cards is important as well.
Interestingly, Happy Dog really doesn’t lose much control with more players, since most rows come down to a shootout between two players and three players per row is pretty much the maximum. With more players, you’ll probably find yourself involved in battles with multiple opponents, which adds to the tension and yields some interesting decisions. Where the loss of control can come in is if two of your opponents decide to throw massive numbers of cards at a single row. One of those folks is going to make a killing (barring a tie) and there ain’t nothing you can do to stop it. I’d like to try this with two or three, but I think it will play well with all numbers.
The balance between luck and skill (about even) is pretty much want you’d want from a filler. I don’t think this is the next Bohnanza, but it’s a pleasant game with some meat on it and seems like a solid filler. If you can find it, I’d recommend giving it a try.
By the way, the other variant (the Position game, which is strictly a 2-3 player game) is very similar to the Stream variant, except that there are exactly seven rows and the object is to win the most rows. Obviously, that will lead to very different strategies.
Other Games We Played
I got in my first three-player game of Cleopatra last week. It seems to play well with that number, although it can be tough if you’re trying to draw specific cards, as there’s a good chance that the display won’t change too much from when you were drawing on your previous turn. I’ve mentioned that this has about a one game learning curve, and I still feel that way, but if you want to minimize that, play your first game with three. You’ll see more turns and should be in the swing of things by mid-game. If everyone’s new to the game, starting out with a three-player is probably a pretty good idea, for the reason given above, as well as lower downtime. I think I prefer it with five (although I’d have no problem playing with three again), but four may turn out to be the sweet spot.
I also played my first game of California with three players as well. It does seem to have a different feel with that number. With all the rooms requiring payments to put down the flooring tiles, you’d think that money would be tighter. But with fewer players, you’ll be getting more of the Bank’s $5 coins, so it actually felt as if there was more moolah in the game. For some reason, turns seemed to end quicker, too; we had a ton of discarded tiles by the twelfth turn. I don’t know why, but I liked this better with more players. Again, though, I wouldn’t mind playing with three. California’s niche, to me, is as an extended, somewhat meaty filler. Great when you have 45 minutes until the other group finishes their game (or until you break for dinner), but not something I want to plan an evening around. I’m sure we’ll be playing this for quite a few years if it doesn’t get overexposed.
Finally, I had a four-player game of Märklin and tried the western strategy for the first time. Man, all those short gray routes make it tough sledding! It seemed like I was just crawling along. The incremental progress also seemed to delay my passenger runs, although maybe I wasn’t being aggressive enough there. It also didn’t help that I drew two long tickets at the start and both were of minimum length (12 pointers). In hindsight, I realize I should have taken additional tickets right away, since I had a bunch of trains after I had completed my original batch. Fortunately, I got lucky when I did finally pick tickets, as there was a 21 pointer that only required a few extra routes to complete. I managed to finish it on the last turn of the game! Still, I was way in last place and in danger of being lapped before tickets were scored. But thanks to some unfulfilled tickets by my opponents and my 10 point bonus for most tickets made, I shot up the scoreboard and only finished a few points from a worst to first miracle finish! This gave me an even better appreciation for the game’s balance. Still, in future games, I’ll be a little more wary of an all-West Coast strategy.
By the way, I also got to play Märklin a few weeks ago with two players. This was still fun, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as with four or five. This very well could have been because my opponent was a first-time player with little gaming experience. But I’m still a little concerned that the game may be less exciting with two, because the competition for the merchandise tokens will be less. I’d be curious to hear from any of you about your experiences with two-player Märklin.
Well, that summarizes my very enjoyable gaming for last week. Two pyramid games, two with puppies (what, you forgot about the cute doggie “furnishing� tile from California?), and another Moon classic to round out the bunch. Mykerinos is a keeper and Happy Dog is a nice filler. Happily, none of the week’s games turned out to be a dog!
Bison
I know it’s a sickness, but I’m already looking forward to the new games that should be coming out soon. #1 on my list is Tempus (who knew that several civilizations would rise and fall between the time it was announced and the time it will finally be released?), but some of the recent reports on the Kramer/Kiesling game Bison have pushed it up to the number 2 spot. This summary of the rules by Betty Egan on the Geek really piqued my interest, along with Marc P.’s comments on the User Ratings page. Some of the early complaints that the game might be dry or abstract haven’t bothered me, because it sounds similar to the situation in Kramer’s Hacienda, where the abstract nature of the game was relieved (for me, at least) by its economic subgame. At any rate, Kramer and Kiesling have an impressive track record of coming up with new twists on area majority games, so this is definitely a design I want to check out as soon as possible.
Meeples Choice Award winners
The polling of the spielfriek user group members for 2005’s Meeples Choice Awards ended yesterday and the very deserving winners are:
Caylus
Louis XIV
Shadows over Camelot
Outside of a runaway victory by Caylus, the voting was very close, as befits a year in which many good, but few great games were released. The other games which finished in the Top Ten, all of which had impressive vote totals, were: Twilight Struggle, Railroad Tycoon, Antike, Ticket to Ride: Europe, Hacienda, Elasund, and Indonesia. Congratulations to the designers and publishers of the three winning games.
Finally, for my American readers, let me wish you a happy and safe holiday weekend. Try to sneak some gaming in amongst all the fireworks on the Fourth!
© 2006 Larry Levy
Posted by Larry Levy on Jul 1, 2006 at 03:00 AM in Columnists, Larry Levy / 1193
Comments:
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I had the opportunity to see Sebastien’s prototype and it looks like another good game from Ystari with a similar weight to Mykerinos. Posted by Jeff Allers on Jul 1, 2006 at 04:21 AM | #
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Hi:
Posted by Mario Aguila on Jul 1, 2006 at 09:34 AM | #
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