Matt Carlson: More SdJ Gibberish

In what is clearly a unique experience for me, I’ve actually played several of the Spiel des Jahres nominees BEFORE the award is announced.  While I love playing new games and tend to be on the cutting edge of my local game group, I do not import games nor do I attend boardgame gatherings where I would have access to prototypes.  However, with two of the five titles developed here in the US, I’ve managed to get ahold of them before the nominees were announced!  As the winner will be announced in a matter of days, I thought I’d share my unsolicited opinion on the three that I have played: Finca, Pandemic, and Dominion.

Finca
Disclosure:  I received a free copy of this game from Rio Grande Games to review.
This title is the game I’ve played the least of the three, but I do find it an interesting experience.  Players move pawns around a rondel (circle) to gather fruit or choose to deliver fruit to one or more spaces on the game board to collect tokens worth points.  Extra points are awarded for collecting sets of fruit (one through six) or for having the majority of a fruit delivered when a game board space is devoid of tokens.  When enough spaces are cleared the game ends.  While not a complicated game, there are still some strategic and tactical decisions to be made.  Should I go for collecting sets or try to get majorities in specific fruits?  Should I horde fruit looking to seize prime opportunities or should I deliver as quickly as possible to the tokens I want?  In a nice touch, if everyone hordes resources there is a good chance that the resources will get dumped back into the bank.  I think the game would be just a bit dry for me if it weren’t for the four rules exceptions given to each player to use once during the game.  Just when and where to perform an extraordinary action can really leverage one’s position.  The game is colorful and has great bits to help attract the game-adverse.  I prefer a bit more strategic interaction to my games when I can, but I think it does a great job of being a unique candidate in the family-friendly category.  It could be a fine introduction for new gamers to a rondel mechanism as well as set collecting and area majorities for victory points.  It plays fairly fast even with four players, making it a good warm-up game for a longer gaming evening.

Pandemic
Disclosure: I traded for this game via a BGG trade, but have sometimes received discounted games from Z-Man games in past years.  I have also met Zev personally at GenCon.
I was very happy to see Pandemic get a nomination this year.  I’m a big fan of cooperative games as they fill a needed niche within the hobby.  Some folks just don’t take to the forced competitiveness of a standard boardgame and it is nice to have options where everyone can win or lose together.  Pandemic stands out for me in this category as it is easy to explain and plays in a moderate amount of time.  Most importantly, rather than having a rigid story or path for the players to follow on a set board (as in Lord of the Rings, Arkham Horror, or perhaps even Shadows over Camelot), Pandemic’s board ebbs and flows according to the order of the cards making some games a race against outbreaks while others are more of a struggle to collect the right cards for a cure.  Rather than rely on cards or events to drive changes to the board, all the rules and effects are known at the start of the game.  This means beginners have a better chance at making reasonable decisions and lessens the likelihood of other players running the game for the new players.  Pandemic has also earned my respect as it functions very well as a two-player cooperative game.  It has served me well for game evenings with my wife, and I know it is popular with other couples.  It may be just a cult of the new showing through, but I feel it has better long-term replay ability than other cooperative games I’ve tried.

Dominion
Disclosure: I bought this game with my own money, but I did play the game when Dale Yu (one of the developers) was in the same room sitting a few tables away.  I also once played the game In the Year of the Dragon with Dale’s brother.
Of all the games I’ve played this year, Dominion is still my favorite.  I don’t’ often get to play games over and over again, but I have played more Dominion in the past 9 months or so than any other game.  It helps that it was a favorite at the high school game club as well as the local club.  Dominion hits a sweet spot for me as it seems to me to pack nearly everything I want out of a game into as short a time frame as possible.  I love building up an economic engine (also why I like gardening) which is then turned into points.  I also like having multiple choices for a path to victory.  Sometimes a set of 10 cards will have only one or two recommended victory paths, but there are usually a few different options.  The many different combinations of available cards helps to keep the game fresh after many different plays.  I’ve even made the game one of my most portable ones by placing the entire deck into a box for trading card games, complete with dividers I made to keep them separate.  (I plan to upload the dividers I designed to BGG someday, they have the rules info for each card right on the dividers so I don’t have to cart the rulebook around either…) There are some drawbacks to the game, primarily the constant shuffling which can grate on the nerves of those who find it too fiddly.  (I don’t mind.) It can also be a bit much for a non-gamer to jump into for their first taste of eurogames.  Thus, I don’t spring it on anyone who hasn’t already played a few of these games of ours.  Finally, Fate can be a harsh mistress in the game with the luck of the draw giving a player a significant boost or hindrance in the early game, stalling out the game for that player while others forge ahead.  This doesn’t happen too often, but often enough to be a little frustrating.  I love going through a game in my head after finishing to think about what might have gone wrong, but I will occasionally have games of Dominion where I lose fairly seriously and have very few of my own poor decisions to blame.  Despite these minor drawbacks, I really enjoy the game and still bring it out to play as often as I can.  I look forward to the upcoming sequel with anticipation, although I was a bit disappointed with the recent BGG 2-card expansion.  The one was somewhat interesting for variety, but the Black Market card was fun but also slowed down the game immensely as players had to pause to peruse which of the three cards they were interested in purchasing.

So, which game do I think will win?  I don’t have enough information to guess.  If I were going by my personal favorite, I think Dominion is unique enough and definitely fun enough for the win, however it is a bit more of a stretch to play for those who aren’t already into the gaming hobby.  Finca is a solid title and is a good family game, but is a bit abstract and dry for me.  Pandemic is great all the way around, but I fear some might accuse it of having less replay value and the cooperative nature may put some folks (judges?) off.  If I’m forced to guess what’s in a German judge’s mind, I’d go with Finca as it is most like games that have won previously.  If they’re not afraid of a little innovation, I’d love to see Pandemic or Dominon take home a win.  Best of luck to all the publishers, designers, (and developers!) for the final announcement next week!  Feel free to chime in with your own opinions below (if you haven’t already burnt yourself out on the discussion.)

In other, videogame news, I’ve been playing a bit of Hey, That’s My Fish on the Wii console as a download game and a lot of Magic: the Gathering as an Xbox 360 download.  Both are fairly well implemented, with Hey, That’s My Fish having very cute graphics and Magic having a decent computer AI.  I haven’t played either enough for a good review yet, however I have enjoyed my Magic games despite most games vs the computer coming down to who draws better cards and the game’s too harsh of restriction on deck modification.  I hope to let everyone know my thoughts on them in a future post.

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