Valerie Putman:  New games for WBC

I’m headed to Lancaster, PA this week for the World Boardgaming Championships.  I won’t be playing in the tournaments—while I find that kind of gaming exhilarating, it also turns me into a monster that makes little girls cry.  No, once again I’ll be playing the role of “Jay” at Café Jay.  In other words, I’ll be demoing the newest crop of Rio Grande Games.  Four of those games were new enough to me that I convinced our friends to give them a try this week so that I’d be ready to demo them.

Ra: the Dice Game I played the prototype for this 2 years ago, and from what I can tell, nothing has changed.  It really is Ra, but played with dice.  I learned from Modern Art the card game that an auction game can be played without the auctions and still feel true to the original.  That is certainly the case here as well.  Just as in the original, players are collecting rivers (only worth points with a flood), pharos (only worth points for the most and worth negative points if you have the least), civilizations (don’t be caught without any—though hard to actually score positive points with), and monuments (which only score in the last round).  It is similar enough to the original that it will likely appeal to many of the same players and yet different enough to be worth playing, even if you just played Ra last week.  If you haven’t played Ra in a while, this is a nice treat.

Bonnie and Clyde The next installment in the mystery rummy series is finally here.  The art is terrific (though the numbers on the cards could be in a larger font) and the play is classic rummy with a twist.  We were worried at first as several of us scored quite low in the first few rounds and Tyler was running away with the game, but big hands make come back from behind wins quite possible.  Once again, I think we have a clear audience here—if you liked the others in the series, this one is a no brainer.

Maori Players are exploring a 4 x 4 grid of tiles and, upon finding a good island, zapping it to their own island oasis on their playing mat.  Ok, so the game mechanic doesn’t really fit the theme—I rarely care about that.  We played the basic game (which allows you to place new island tiles anywhere on your board) and it was a nice, light game.  I think I would enjoy the variants which limit where on your board you can place your next piece.  Still, even with the basic game, there were enough different ways to score points to make the decisions quick but interesting.

Sherwood Forest This was probably my least favorite of the 4 new games I played this week, but only because I’m generally not a fan of negotiation games.  I know quite a few people who try to turn every game into a negotiation and I suspect that this game would be far more appealing to them.  Players are collecting and spending resources (with a slight worker placement feel to it) in order to try and successfully raid the traveling parties that pass through the forest.  Parties are often large enough that you’re going to need help in order to collect the loot and the system for forming alliances is quite free form.  Unfortunatley, the rules are a bit too vague about how the loot is then divided among the raiders—particularly in the case when there is more loot than there were participants or when there isn’t enough to distribute evenly.  There are advanced rules that introduce even more negotiating (so of course, I skipped them) and it might have been clearer with those rules.  In the end, it was nice art and nice game bits and possibly a very nice game—for someone else.

I will also be demoing at WBC:  Dominion, Dominion: Intrigue, Race for the Galaxy, Finca, Royal Palace, and A Castle for All Seasons.  Even if you are too busy with your tournament schedule to sit down and play a game, make sure you stop by and say hi!

I’d rather be gaming,
Valerie Putman

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