Larry Levy:  Thanksgiving Leftovers

I trust all my American readers are patting their tummies contentedly, having pigged out on turkey and stuffing and green bean casserole over the last two days.  Now you’re probably anticipating a few meals from the leftovers—maybe a sandwich or a nice turkey salad?  It seems like an appropriate time for some leftovers of my own, a couple of items I didn’t have room to talk about last week.  Best of all, this allows me to finish my writing early, giving me time to spend Thanksgiving with my family and friends.

Panacea
Well, we did play stuff other than Through the Ages two weeks ago.  One of them was this self-published deduction game from Jeph Stahl, who gave them away to the attendees of this year’s Great Lakes Games (Jeph did the same thing last year with his first published game, Port Dover).  Most of you probably know of my love for the deducers, so I was interested in trying this out.  While it’s not as hard as some other examples of the genre I could name, it does have some interesting ideas and unique mechanics.

There are two identical decks of 15 cards, each picturing an alchemical ingrediant.  Each player is dealt three cards from one of the decks.  The object is to deduce two of the cards held by each player (these ingrediants can be combined to make the desired formula, the Panacea).

The components are first-rate.  The cards are sturdy and the information sheets reasonably useful.  Best of all, each player gets a custom six-sided die and these are solid and very well made.  Very impressive for a self-published game.

Each player, on his turn, rolls his die.  Each die has two faces with a “0â€?, two with a “1â€?, and two with a “2+â€?.  The outcome of the roll determines what he does.

If a “0â€? comes up, he chooses an opponent and takes the second deck.  He selects at least three cards and passes them face down to the opponent.  However, none of the selected cards can be in his own hand.  The opponent then turns her die to the face that matches how many of the cards are in her hand and shuffles the cards back into the second deck.  The other players see this result, but not the cards passed.  Thus, the active player receives information about his opponent’s hand, but also gives information away to the opponent.

On a “1�, the same thing happens, except that now at least one of the chosen cards must be in the player’s hand.

A “2+â€? result is different.  The active player chooses any number of cards from the second deck and exposes them in the middle of the table.  Each player now picks up his die.  The box the game comes in is ingeniously constructed with a square hole in the side and a height just a little bit greater than the height of each die.  Each player (including the active player) secretly puts his die into the box through the hole with the face showing that matches how many cards from the selection are in his hand.  The box top is then lifted up to reveal the dice.  Thus, everyone knows how many total cards from the selection are in all the players’ hands and the distribution of holdings, but not how many are in each player’s hand.  Very clever.

The first player to name at least two cards from each player’s hand wins.

There’s a lot to like in Panacea.  The exchange of information is nice, as it forces the questioner to give away data while he obtains it.  The joint revelation on the 2+ roll is unique as far as I know and can give you some nice logic puzzles.  The design is unusually fast for a deduction game, while still allowing you to exercise the little grey cells.

There are some issues, though.  If you aren’t the player chosen on a “0â€? or “1â€? roll, there’s nothing for you to do and precious little information to be obtained.  In most deducers, everyone except the questioned player is involved on every turn, so this is a bit of a concern.  Most of the time, a “1â€? roll is your best result and a “2+â€? your worst one, so the luck factor is significant.  One possible fix for this would be to give each player three tokens, a “0â€?, “1â€?, and a “2+â€?, and let him play one during each cycle of three turns.  Maybe the biggest problem is one that plagues many deduction games, the “accidental discoveryâ€?.  In our game, one of the players was fortunate enough to pass me three cards which included two of the ones in my hand.  In a later turn, he passed five cards to another player and got a result of “0â€?.  Not surprisingly, he won, although at least one other player was only one or two guesses away from getting a solution.

Despite these issues, I consider Panacea a successful design.  It has enough clever ideas and good enough gameplay to be a worthwhile addition to any deduction game lovers’ library.  It’s a nice effort by Jeph Stahl and if he produces another design for next year’s GLG, I’ll be interested in giving it a try.

Golden Geek Winners
Derk and Aldie announced the winners of the inaugural Golden Geek awards during BGG.con.  In case you missed it, here they are:

Gamer’s Game - Caylus
Wargame - Twilight Struggle
Kids Game - Nacht der Magier
Two-player Game - Twilight Struggle
Family Game - Ingenious
Light/Party Game - Diamant

Game of the Year - Caylus

Despite some nominations that were less than paragons of consistency, these are pretty good choices.  The voters should be congratulated for a job well done.

Caylus continues its remarkable run of gaming awards.  It has now chalked up the DSP, IGA, and GG game of the year awards, an extremely impressive hattrick.

Just as impressive is Twilight Struggle, which once again managed to grab multiple awards (earlier, it became the first game to win both the Best Historical and Best Two-player awards from the IGA).  It’s dual victory here is a bit embarrassing, as the two-player category expressly excluded wargames.  This appears to be a bit of a contradiction, but no one is really at fault—enough voters clearly considered it to be more of a euro than a wargame to vote for it as a two-player, while another group felt it was the best of the nominated wargames.  The fact remains that TS must be considered the greatest crossover game ever designed and this is yet more evidence to support that contention.  Twilight Struggle, Caylus, and SdJ winner Thurn and Taxis have to be considered the most notable games of the ’05-’06 award game season.

Speaking of T&T, it received surprisingly little support in the family game category, not even finishing in the top three.  Ingenious is a reasonable choice, as it’s meaty enough for gamers while still light enough to be enjoyed by the family.

Most of the nominated kid’s games would be pretty challenging for the tykes.  But Nacht der Magier is an excellent choice, a design that will delight both parents and the kiddies.

Finally, Diamant works as both a light game and as a party game, as it can handle up to eight players.

None of my selections finished on top, although Caylus was my second choice for gamer’s game.  My picks were, respectively, Louis XIV for gamer’s game, no selection for wargame, Ice Cream for kids game, Aton and Roma (tied) for two-player game, Thurn and Taxis for family game, and No Thanks for light/party game.  Outside of Caylus, I didn’t place any of the winners in my Top Five in their category.  Still, these are all good games and deserving of the honor.  Congratulations in particular go to William Attia and Ystari for GotY Caylus and to Jason Matthews, Ananda Gupta, and GMT Games for double winner Twilight Struggle.

I hope everyone had a great turkey day and is getting lots of game time with their friends and families.  Have a safe drive home and we’ll do it again next week, where there might be even a few more leftovers on display.

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