Valerie Putman:  Gathering of Friends, 2009

As I mentioned last week, my father passed away unexpectedly in the middle of the Gathering, so I was only there for a few days at the beginning and a few days at the end.  I also didn’t play that many games when I got back—it was more about being with my friends and feeling comforted.  But here’s a look at the games that I did play:

Fits This is a tetris-like game from Ravensburger that I played twice and loved, loved, loved.  For starters, I love puzzle games.  I also love Tetris and many things Knizia, so this had all the right signs for “Valerie’s kind of game.” Each player has a slanted board and a variety of pieces (think Blokus, not just the traditional Tetris pieces).  Each player has a different random starting piece—ensuring that the rest of the game doesn’t play out identically for all players.  Then cards are flipped over one at a time revealing which piece needs to be slid into the grid from the top of the board next.  Unlike Tetris, you can’t use a well-timed left or right arrow to slide a piece into a previously formed gap.  All pieces have to slide straight down.  In the first round, like Tetris, you are trying to form complete lines and avoid holes.  Each completed line is worth one point and each dot revealed on through the gaps from the board behind your pieces is minus one point.  Rounds 2 – 4 are played in the same way, but the board you are covering changes slightly along with the scoring.  In round 2 there are spots that are worth 1 or 3 points if you leave them uncovered and you no longer get 1 point for each completed row.  In round 3 there are still spots worth 1 or 3 points, but there are also spots worth -5 points.  In the final round there are pairs of symbols on the board.  If you leave both symbols in a pair uncovered, it’s worth 3 points.  If you cover both of them there is no penalty.  If you leave one symbol uncovered and cover the matching symbol, it is worth -3 points.  You add up your points from all 4 rounds and the person with the highest score wins.  Like many other puzzle games, this is one I would be happy to play solitaire as well.

Automobile This is a new Martin Wallace game in the Treefrog line.  I was a big fan of Tinner’s Trail and I looked forward to trying this one.  It reminded me a bit of the Winsome game, Locomotive Werks, with a few added layers.  The game only lasts 4 rounds and it was halfway through round 2 before I think most of us had a good grasp of strategy, but it just means that this is one that I look forward to playing again.  In a nutshell, players take on the rolls of major car makers in US history and build car factories.  As you produce cars, hire salesmen, and produce more factories, you must consider how much product the market will bear.  Overproducing and overhiring will gain you black tokens to represent your excess and those tokens cost money every round.  You also gain black tokens if the car models you are producing aren’t the newest around.  It was fun, but I’ll have to play it a few more times to decide whether I prefer the complexity of Automotive or the simplicity of Locomotive Werks.

Friday Friedemann Friese has been blogging about his Friday project.  The game is called Friday and it is based on the plummeting stock market prices of Black Friday.  His plan was to work on the game for 5 years (only on Fridays, for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 50 minutes, 5 hours, etc.), releasing it on Friday at Essen 2013.  The bad news is, the game felt nearly finished!  Perhaps he’ll need to create 5 games in 5 years working only on Fridays!  Friedemann is blogging about the process and gave players permission to talk about the game, even though it is in prototype form.  Players are buying and selling stocks, trying to make enough money to buy gold.  It’s important to turn your cash into gold early because gold prices are rising and stock prices, after initial gains, will inevitably start to crash.  If you cash in for gold too early, though, you won’t have enough money to play the market and it takes money to make money…at least until the tide turns.  What’s fun is that it is even possible to completely bankrupt your company (what do you care? You’re sitting on a pile of embezzled gold!) and win the game.  I actually tied for most gold in our game after bankrupting a few turns before the game end.  Blasted tie breaker—most money, of course.  I’m sure the game will change a bit before it comes out in 2013…but man, what a long time to have to wait for the game!

Finito This filler is very much like Bingo with choices.  Each player will be focused on their own puzzle, attempting to be the first to call out Finito. Since I don’t mind multiplayer solitaire puzzle games, this was right up my alley.  Players are trying to place their tiles numbered 1 – 12 on their player boards in order from lowest to highest.  It can get tricky though as you only have a limited number of tiles you can play or move on a given turn and a dice roll indicates where the next tile must go.  This is another game that might pass the time with as a solitaire game.

I played a few other games that were prototypes or weren’t new.  Overall, I’m thrilled with the gaming I did get in and will just have to bide my time to play some of the other new games that I didn’t get to, like:

Small World
Finca
Kimaloe
Burger, Baumeister, & Co.
Bombay
Qwirkle Cubes
Bonnie & Clyde
Alea Iacta Est
Valdora

I’d rather be gaming,
Valerie Putman

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