Designer: Steve Ryan
Publisher: Educational Insights

Players: 4+
Ages: 7+
Playing Time: 180 minutes
Rules Language: English
Price: $25
Links:

Version played: Comped review copy
Times played: Twice, once each with five and six players

Steve Ryan’s Stix & Stones from Educational Insights has all the hallmarks of a game designed for a mainstream audience as it’s a new take on a familiar game with a clever title that’s a well-known phrase. Here’s the pitch that retailers would give to potential buyers: ”Stix & Stones is like Pictionary, but instead of drawing you build images out of plastic sticks and stones that your teammates then try to identify.”

For the mainstream buyer, the phrase “like Pictionary but different” would get many of them to the cash register, but we serious gamers are made of sterner stuff. Sure, “like Pictionary but different” gives someone 75% of a good game – the game will promote creativity, be interactive and provide great moments – yet the final 25% of the game is the critical stuff. Does Stix & Stones have something like the arbitrary die roll in Pictionary that makes randomness as powerful as skill? Or does it fit the Cluzzle model of having cleverness in your artistry be of primary importance?

Before I answer those questions, check out these images from one of my games and take a guess as to what’s depicted:

These creations were half of the first six designs in the game, and no one guessed them correctly – neither the teammates of the picture builder, nor the players on the other team. Score after 30 minutes: 0 - 0.

An Invitation to Fail

The main problem with Stix & Stones is that it invites players to bid to failure. Unlike Pictionary, in which teams compete against the clock or against each other, Stix & Stones has the picture builders on the two teams bid against one another, Name That Tune-style, as to the number of pieces they will use in their artwork: “I can draw that item with only 15 pieces.” “I’ll do it in 13.” “Okay, 12.” And so on with each picture builder mentally shedding bits from an imagined design until the real-life creation will be as illusory as the imagined one and no one will guess anything.

Players can bid to failure because there’s little chance of a penalty for doing so. If your team guesses the object, you score one point; if your team fails and the opponents guess it, they score two points; however, if the opponents also guess incorrectly, no one scores anything. Thus, you might as well drop your bid lower and win the right to draw as your team will guess first – and if your team can’t guess it, then your opponents will likely fail, too.

Simple solution #1: Award one point to the opposing team whenever the team with the winning bid fails to correctly identify the artwork, and two points if the opposing team can guess the object. Teams would therefore constantly advance toward the ten point goal line and not hover at zero while they get drunker and even less adept at building pictures.

Time to Guess?

Stix & Stones also fails to measure up against Pictionary in terms of how players take guesses. In Pictionary players guess the entire time that a drawer is drawing because either time is running out or another team might beat you to the punch. As the drawer, you get to respond to your teammates’ stupid guesses by taking a new approach or editing the work that you’ve already done. Surely those bozos will get it now, right?

In Stix & Stones your teammates are forbidden from guessing while you construct the piece in 60 seconds, then they caucus and can make only a single guess. One! Which means there’s lots of humming and hawing while they debate whether the square with a dollar sign in it is a bank or a vault or money or a bill or something else entirely. Time passes, and everyone gets bored, and there’s no real reason for choosing one answer over another, so you start picking apart every little detail of the artwork even though they don’t matter, and everyone gets even boreder, if that’s possible, then finally someone says, “Oh, whatever, we’ll go with your answer,” then you’re wrong, then the other team does the same thing, and oh, God, when will it end?

Simple solution #2: Allow players to guess while their teammate is creating the artwork or provide a limited amount of time in which players can guess as many times as they want. I mean, I would have been bummed out after I made this fantastic work…

...and we had failed to gain a point because my teammates guessed “aardvark” instead of “anteater.” Thankfully, they intuited that the stones were ants, not termites. (The rules allow you to score when naming synonyms, but aardvarks and anteaters are not the same, despite their superficial bug-eating ways.)

Meeeeee!!!

What’s the most fun part of Pictionary? Guessing what someone else is drawing? Not really, although it does have moments when the drawer is growing exasperated by your denseness and jabbing at the paper again and again and circling the same thing repeatedly as if the sheer quantity of circles will transmit information to your brain. Knowing what the drawer on the other team is doing and quietly laughing at her feeble attempt? This can be good for a few chuckles, yes, especially when you think about how awesome your drawing would have been.

Which just points out that the most fun part of Pictionary is actually creating the pictures – that is, having an idea for how you can dash off lines to create a globe before the other team’s drawer can. When you have a good partner, you as the artist can feel your minds merging, and your heart fills with smugness and joy when she correctly guesses “accordion” while everyone else at the table sees only a half-dozen chicken scratches and the sandtimer is not even a quarter empty.

Creating a picture is also the fun part of Stix & Stones, but the game lacks an “all play” feature in which both builders create a picture at once. You can still have the vicarious thrill of looking at an opponent’s “artistry” and knowing that you can do better, but what’s more likely to happen is that you’ll lower your bid so that you can be active and do something, rather than sitting and watching until you’re next chance to bid, which once again leads to everlasting failure and a neverending game.

Simple solution #3: Add an “all play” feature to Stix & Stones. Perhaps you can change the scoring system so that each picture builder can use as many bits as she wants, but if a team guesses the right answer while using fewer components than the other team, they score more points.

Or players can have bid cards that show an upper limit in the number of pieces they’ll use, along with a point value they’ll score if their team guesses the right answer first. Using more pieces results in fewer points. By taking this approach, the game would then feature a bluffing element of sorts in terms of how players want to approach their bids. Do I bid low and hope my teammates can get Christopher Columbus from only seven bits, or take a safer route? Maybe the picture builders now also have to compete for the building components rather than being able to take the ones they want.

I can think of many different approaches to the 25% of Stix & Stones that isn’t Pictionary, and while those approaches might not be better than what’s in the box – given that I’ve playtested none of them – the game as published drags on far too long for the amount of fun we had, leading us to stop both times before we put in the 180 minutes required to reach ten points. Thus we come to…

Simple solution #4: Put Stix & Stones aside and play Pictionary instead.

Factory Manager is a more modest effort.  The game only lasts five turns, and the key mechanism is an auction for turn order, hardly a major innovation.

In FM, players vie for tiles over the course of the game’s five turns:

• Storage tiles boost a factory’s storage capacity. (A player’s income is based on either his storage or production capacity – whichever is lower.)
• Machinery tiles boost a player’s production, but increase his labor use and his energy use.
• Red robot tiles boost a player’s production without using any additional labor, but they increase energy use.
• Yellow robot tiles don’t effect production numbers, but they decrease labor usage while increasing energy costs.

After tiles are purchased, players adjust their production, storage, energy use, and labor use numbers.  The cost of energy is adjusted by the draw of a random tile (with the cost generally going up over time).  Players then collect income (minus their energy costs).

While some of this may sound complex on the page, it seemed that FM was a fairly simple and straightforward game in practice.  And the game doesn’t overstay its welcome; even a five-player game should not take more than an hour and a half at the most, and maybe considerably less than that.

If there is a flaw in the game, it may the last turn.  When playing with the Appalachian Gamers, I found that most players were content to choose tiles by instinct for most of the game.  But on the last turn, every player did a cost/benefit analysis of purchasing every combination of available tiles.  This made the last turn the slowest of the game, and more than one player thought it diminished the fun of the game.

Nevertheless, I rather like Factory Manager.  I admit that the game is a bit dry, but I am the kind of gamer who enjoys Martin Wallace’s Automobile in spite of the fact that I may never win the game unless I play against ten-year-olds.

I find that there is suspense in each turn to see whether I will get the tiles I need most.  Factory Manager may not be the giant that Power Grid is, but I don’t hold that against it.  There is room in my collection for a few dry economic games, and one of them will be Factory Manager.

The winners of the Premio Archimede receive support funds of €3,500 in the form of research trips, funds for publication, and so on. The jury will also award a few special trophies, such as the Carta Mundi Special Trophy for the best card game, with the prize being 1,000 copies of said card game produced for free by Carta Mundi.

The deadline for entry is July 30, 2010. Visit the Premio Archimede page on the studiogiochi website for a participation form, entry fee information, and other details.

Such agreements have become more common in recent years, with German publisher eggertspiele signing a similar agreement with Amigo earlier in 2010 and French publisher/distributor Asmodee now serving as the logistics partner for GameWorks and Libellud, among other companies.

The first person to submit the game name that subsequently wins each award will receive prizes from Spielbox. All other individuals who submitted the correct names will be entered into a random drawing, for prizes to be announced later. Complete details of the contest on Spielbox.de.

Whether you are a child, teen or adult, the loss of a special person hurts a great deal. The pain affects us physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, behaviorally and spiritually. Aultman Grief Services has created Doggone Grief – a board game to help people of all ages verbally communicate their mixture of grief emotions....

“Most kids’ first loss is their pet, so it seemed natural to develop a dog-themed game to assist in the communication process,” said [director Brenda Brown], “and dogs show emotion really well too.” ...

Matt Gagnon, the counselor at Oakwood Middle School in Plain Local Schools, said, ”Doggone Grief is a great concept because there are not many fun activities relating to grief on the market.”

For more details on the game, head to the Doggone Grief page on the Aultman Grief Services website.

Battleship (1931)

I’m sure there were earlier parlor games that fit into the “deduction” category, but Battleship is the first mass-produced game which really strikes me as a classic of the genre.
To a certain extent, there’s not much to it. You place battleships on a map, then try to guess where your opponent’s ships are. You’re told if you miss or hit, and also when you’ve sunk a ship. The first one to sink all of an opponent’s ships wins. However, from that limited ruleset comes a game which is truly deductive: starting with a very limited palette of information (the size and allowed orientations of your opponent’s ships) you try and gain more information, in a timed competition against your opponent.

The Good. The core mechanic is original. Overall, this game offers a deft model for including hidden geography in a game, tough one that’s largely limited to two gamers due to the need for maps that can’t be seen by other players. (The idea is easier to model online, and it’s the core of a game my company runs called Galactic Emperor: Hegemony, where each player gets their own view of the galaxy. Most other online multiplayer games use the same model, though few really consider it an element of game.)

The Bad. Battleship is not terribly strategic. The skill of zeroing in on ships really isn’t that tough to acquire, and as a result the game doesn’t feel like it’s playable by anyone but kids.

Overall. Not worth consideration by a serious gamer, but I’d really like designers to take a look at this game, and consider how like mechanics might be used in a more strategic deduction game. It’s still pretty good for kids too. And, it’s got nice bits.

Clue (1948)

The game that most think of when you mention deduction games, and also the basis for many later games (including next week’s Mystery Express) is ultimately Clue (or Cluedo as it’s called in England, playing off of the Latin word, “Ludo”, meaning “I play"). At the start of the game, three cards (Who? Where? How) are taken out of the game from decks on those topics. The rest of the cards are then shuffled up and given out to their players. On his turn a player moves around (via a random die roll) and when he gets into a room he can make a suggestion for those three topics. Other players will then show one of those cards if they have them. Finally, when someone thinks he knows all three elements, he can make a full accusation.

The Good. Clue offers a basis for deduction games that was so good that almost every other major deduction game uses it. It puts forth a real opportunity to solve a mystery. There’s even some opportunity for misleading other players by asking questions that imply certain cards are missing when they actually aren’t.

The Bad. Random movement really underlines the basis of the game in the family genre. The methods for looking at cards aren’t that terribly interesting. You can engage in some strategy by carefully making suggestions that let you look for certain cards, based on what’s in your hand and what you know other people have, but it’s not enough strategy to actually be interesting. You have to sit around and just answer questions if you accuse incorrectly, because you’re otherwise out of the game.

Overall. I’m very thankful that this game exists, because it’s allowed for the creation of much better games. If forced on me at a family gathering, I’d probably be willing to play it.

Mastermind (1971)

The last of my “foundational” games is another one that many of us may have played as kids: Mastermind. But, maybe that just reveals when I was a kid (in the 1970s). It’s most widely called a “code breaking” game. Like Battleship it’s for two players and like Battleship it depends on the geography of two players to maintain some hidden information--though here it’s just a set of four pegs. One player choose a set of four colored pegs, placed in a certain order. The other player then tries to guess them by putting out sequences of four pegs. Each time the code-maker tells him how many of his pegs had both the right position and color and how many just had the right color. Theoretically the two players trade back and forth, scoring based on how fast they guessed the “code”, but practically I remember this game being played in single rounds, where you either got the code or didn’t.

The Good. This is one of the most logical of the deduction games. A limited language is used to good effect to provide enough information to make the game fun, but not enough to give things away. Generally, I think limiting language like this is a great way to build a deduction game. Mechanics of this sort have also been little duplicated in modern games (though I think Reiner Knizia’s Res Publica offers a great example of limiting language in a game; many of the hidden role games like Shadows Over Camelot do the same, but to less good effect because they seem too artificial).

The Bad. Though very analytical, the game is short and light. There’s not a lot to it. It’s been traditionally sold as a kids’ or family game, and a lot of that’s due to depth. The puzzle is also solvable. Various algorithms over the years have pulled the solution to the original puzzle down to five moves or less (though I’m not sure how well a person does with these algorithms, which depend on computers).

Overall. Of all the games I’ve listed this week, this is the one I’d be most likely to play again, though I wouldn’t expect it to have much depth. I also think it, like the core mechanic of Battleship, is just begging to be exploited in newer games.

Around the Corner

I’ve got at least two more articles planned for this series, one focusing on Clue-like games and another focusing on hidden-role games. I’d love to hear your thoughts on top deduction games that should go in those articles, or in other ones that I’ve missed, and of course your thoughts on these three classics as well. I may also write an article on “Forgotten Classics” (like the aforementioned What’s On My Head?) if I get enough suggestions for those.

You can find my article on Mystery Express, the game that got me thinking, over at RPGnet. You may also want to take a look at last week’s review of Terra Prime (the other game by newcomer Tasty Minstrel Games, also the publisher of Homesteaders).

In the meantime I’ll see you back here in 14 days. It’ll be April First, so don’t believe a thing I say.

In American Rails, each player assumes the role of a wealthy capitalist managing a portfolio of stocks and bonds in six fictional railroad companies. Through ruthless negotiation and rigorous planning, players struggle to increase the value of their holdings and reap the profits. The player with the most money at the end of the game will become the nation’s first railroad baron and win the game.

English rules are available through Harrison’s website, which also features a preorder page for the game, which should be available before the end of April 2010.

The list of titles included in Family Games: The 100 Best, along with the gamer or designer writing about them, is posted on the book’s webpage. Some of the interesting combinations include:

• James Ernest on Candy Land
• Corey Konieczka on For Sale
• Matt Leacock on Go Away Monster!
• Jason Matthews on Gulo Gulo
• Alan R. Moon on Hoity Toity
• Peter Olotka on Risk
• Richard Breese on Rummikub
• Andrea Angiolino on Survive!
• Steve Jackson on The Great Dalmuti

Knizia designs have been disappearing from a number of online gaming sites of late, with Ra being removed from BrettSpielWelt and Samurai from MabiWeb. At the same time, many Knizia designs have been released as iPhone apps over the past six months, so don’t be surprised if Amun-Re and company show up there, too.

Now Hanno Girke of Lookout Games, the publisher of Le Havre, is turning to the game’s fans once again, this time requesting ideas for 30 new standard buildings, which will most likely represent some other French port city. In a follow-up post on BGG, Girke suggested the following: “[F]ind a theme, a strategy, and the buildings that might help this strategy. After the first brainstorm, someone will suddenly see the light and come up with a set that consists of different ideas discussed here.” Whether you have ideas for one card or thirty, you can post them in the BGG thread linked to above.

A number of fans have created their own version of the gameboard, such as this number on display at the 2009 BGG.con. While that design was carved from foam, a member of my game group, Joey Miseirvitch, has gone in another direction, thanks to the equipment at the printing company where he works. Here’s his remake of the gameboard:

This gameboard is a slightly plasticized canvas-type of material, allowing it to be folded or scrunched, then laid out flat once again. You can iron the material with a cool iron if you want to remove all the creases. [Edit, March 18, 2010: At Dauch’s request, Miseirvitch has asked me to pull his contact information as he will no longer sell copies of this gameboard.]

Tim Holland, who was widely considered the world’s greatest backgammon player during that ancient board game’s modern heyday, in the 1960s and ‘70s, died on March 10 at his home in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 79…

Mr. Holland won the World Backgammon Association championship in 1967, 1968 and 1971. (No championship tournaments were held in 1969 or 1970.) Besides retaining the title, he pocketed more than $30,000 in prize money for each of those championships. By the early 1970s he was averaging $60,000 a year in tournament money, and that did not include significant earnings from bets he had placed on himself or his percentage from the winnings of the highest bidders at tournaments where the best players were “auctioned off.”

Asteroyds is set in the Lost Swarm, an erratic asteroid field that possesses no minerals, no riches – only the possibility of providing the most dangerous race course in the universe.

In the primary game, players must launch their spaceships from a platform and travel through four gates in order to win. Each round starts by rolling three dice – red, white and blue – then players secretly decide the actions they’ll take: moving forward, left or right; reversing direction; or activating a shield. Players have a limited amount of time to choose their actions, with the number of seconds determined by how difficult the players want to make the game. Once time runs out, players first move the red, white and blue objects on the gameboard in the directions indicated on the dice, then move their ships in player order. Hit an asteroid or other object with your ship, and you’ll take damage; take too much damage, and you’ll become one with the asteroid field (as a corpse). Whichever player hits four gates first wins.

Ystari’s Cyril Demaegd notes, “We’ll add a form to the page when the game is ready in April. This form will be an opportunity for players to propose new scenarios, which will be published on the website. The best ideas will be rewarded with games and goodies.” I call dibs on the moon rock!

Chapman didn’t include a release date for the new edition as it’s still in the works, but he did say this: “It’ll be bigger – both in scale and weight – and more impressive than any previous edition. This will be a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the game’s first release, so we were not content just incorporating the maps, units, and rules from GEV,” GEV being a companion game to Ogre. The Munchkin figures being attacked by the tank? They’re just masochists.

This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.

Retailers are usually “outgunned” in the information on any given product – by the consumer! The consumer who likes Magic: The Gathering will read and learn about his one passion. while the retailer has maybe 2,500 products to keep track of, and over 200 new release titles every month to consider…

This has changed the relationships of all parties involved.  Where the retail store owner used to be revered as a guy with the coolest possible job, they are now often looked at and viewed – by consumers – as some poor doofus who is hopelessly misinformed on all things gaming, and who is akin to a money-grubbing greedy guy who charges “full retail price,” when only dummies pay full retail.

Classics

En Garde – the classic fencing card game by Dr. Knizia has been re-done by Gryphon Games.  The first release of this game was in 1993, and it was getting hard to find on the secondary market.  The new release has beautiful art, and two nice pewter fencing figures to boot.  This is a great little card game with three different versions of play to keep everyone interested.

Code 777 – this classic deduction game by Robert Abbott and Alex Randolph took on almost a “grail” status due to its relative unavailability.  A few years ago, I saw a copy of this game in shrink go for $125.  The quality of the production remains to be seen as Stronghold is a new company, but with Kevin Nesbitt as part of the leadership group, I’m fairly certain that the quality will be high.

Big City – When this game went out of print, suddenly there were people everywhere looking for it.  This more modern version of Metropolis is a great strategic game of urban planning.  Valley Games has announced a 4Q 2010 release of their reprint - and it appears to be anticipated by many folks out there who are looking for a chance to play this gem from the late Franz-Benno Delonge.

Newer Games

#58 (Age of Scheme) – Samarkand: Routes to Riches – though there was certainly some debate over the subtitle of the original game – this David V.H. Peters game is incredibly complex for the 45 minutes it takes to play.  The original version possibly had fewer than 100 copies made.  Queen Games acquired the rights to the game, and has plans to have their version available by Spiel 2010.  I have had a chance to play the new version, and I must say that it has been improved and made a bit more accessible to the general gamer (mostly a simplification of the mathematical calculations that one needs to mentally do).  I believe that this has a chance to do very well in the mainstream market come the fall.

Baltimore and Ohio – Another Winsome title which has been picked up by Eagle Games for publication later this year.  B&O is a no-luck auction game which was part of the 2009 Essen Set.  I’ll be curious to see if the game undergoes any further development.  The two games that I’ve played so far each ran at least two hours, and I don’t know if that length of game is something the modern market is looking for.  But I hope that it is!  Because it’s a wonderfully done game, and with a graphic update – it should appeal to those looking for a challenging economic game. 

Factory Fun – Zman is going to reprint this great little puzzle game originally done by Cwali.  Like most of the Cwali games, the initial print run was fairly small, and once sold out – no more copies were to be made.  Now everyone will have the change to struggle over how to connect their different goo machines together.

Filipino Fruit Market - this wonderful card game (well, actually two card games) is being re-done this year by Indie Board and Cards.  I’m actually trying to get my review of this done for next week - so more details then!

Again, I think it is great that all of these games (and many others that I don’t have the time or space to mention here) are getting another chance to see the light of day.  I certainly know that there are many gamers that took the incredible time and effort needed to make their own copy of these hard-to-find games, but I think that most gamers will be more likely to purchase a well done, professionally produced version of the game.  And, I hope that these games are commercial successes as this will possibly spur on other companies to look at reprinting other games that deserve a chance for a wider audience.

Update on teaching Dominion to the kids

Well, last week I spoke a bit on my plan on teaching Dominion to the kids.  I must say that so far, their aptitude for picking up the game has far exceeded my expectations.  Of course, it probably helps that they have each watched at least 200 games as I’ve been playtesting at home over the past 2 years!

The kids learned the basic rules very well.  Again, I have no idea how much they had absorbed from simply watching the adults play.  But, we started out with 12 cards decks – 7 coppers, 3 estates, a smithy on top and a village on bottom.  The Supply was set up for a regular game – and I just let the kids take about 7 or 8 turns going thru the A/B/C progression.  By seeding their decks with the action cards, the kids got a feel for how to play an action (the Smithy) on the first turn.  The Village on the second draw let me show them how/when to shuffle and to show them that they might not be able to play all the Actions (if they had no other actions in their hand).  We did this a few times until the kids were proficient at the three phases of each turn.  I took the time at this step to make sure they understood where to place cards just purchased (the discard pile) as well as the appropriate time to shuffle their deck (only when they needed to draw a new card).

After that, we spent a little time going over the 10 Action cards recommended for a starting player.  I again gave them starting decks and seeded them with 2 different Action cards, and then had them play a few rounds with those cards.  Giving them a chance to practice the Actions a few times helped them quickly learn the abilities of the card and to remember them.  I also managed to sneak in a few other cards (Feast, Laboratory, and Festival) along the way.

Once I felt that they were comfortable with the Action cards, we moved on to a “full” game.  Well, not quite full – right now they are playing with only 6 cards in each Kingdom card pile and 8 in each Victory card pile.  I figured that this would give them enough chance to try to buy different cards while ending the game in a shorter time period (always with 3 piles thus far).  I have actually tried to not give them any advice on what cards to buy as I wanted them to develop their own strategies, and within about 5 games, both of the boys have learned to buy a few Silvers at the start of the game so they don’t slow down later on.  (Way to go kids!).  They’re not quite good at knowing when to switch over from deck development to victory point gathering quite yet, but they improve with each game.

The kids have improved to the point where they can play on their own – and I think the highest testament to their ability is that they have managed to teach two other 8 year olds in the neighborhood how to play – without my help.  I think that I’ll likely leave them with the smaller pile sizes for a while longer, and take this chance to introduce them to the other 12 cards that they haven’t seen yet.  Once they are comfortable with all the cards, I’ll likely move them onto full 10 card stacks.

But, as a father (and developer of the game), I’ve been really proud at how the kids have taken to Dominion – once they were interested in learning it.  I feel good that I didn’t try to force it on them in the past because they’ve managed to learn it on their own terms, and hopefully it’s a game that they will continue to play through the summer!

So – it’s time for me to burrow into my basketball cocoon… Games start tomorrow at noon!
Go Vanderbilt Commodores – men play Thursday 2:30pm against Murray State, the women play Sunday 12:11pm against DePaul – played here in Cincinnati!  And I’m still pulling for the Cincinnati Bearcats in the NIT.  Game tonight at 7pm – hopefully I’ll be at the game!

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

• Legitimacy, by Chuck Whelon – The king is dead, and you and your fellow players all want to claim what you think is your rightful place on the throne. Play it straight or trick the other crown claimants to fight for power. (2-6 players, 30 minutes)

• Those Pesky Humans!, by James Mathe and Clay Gardner – In general, players are monsters who want to keep humans from invading their dungeon and making off with their gems. In addition to a solitaire game, TPH can be played with one player taking on the role of the humans and pitting him against one or more monsters (i.e., the other players). (1-4 players, ages 13+, 60-90 minutes)

• Sturgeon, by Russ Brown – In this card game players want to stock their portion of the lake with fish, then play larger fish to “eat” those fish, eventually working their way up to catching sturgeon, as the first player to capture two sturgeon wins. Special action cards let you dip into an opponent’s area, set up barriers to protect your stock, and more. (2-5 players, ages 10+)

• Nile, by Daniel Callister and James Mathe – A card game set in Eygpt in which players draft cards representing resources, then try to profit from floods. (2-5 players, ages 8+, 30 minutes)

While most game developers struggle to monetize even three percent of their users through direct payments for virtual currency, new numbers released today by Offerpal Media at the Game Developers Conference show that alternative payment methods enable developers to monetize significantly larger portions of their user base. Derived from a study conducted by comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, as well as from Offerpal’s own network-wide monetization performance, the numbers verify that social gamers are enthusiastic about alternative, or indirect, payment methods as a way to earn virtual currency for free rather than having to pay for it directly.

According to the comScore study, 53.3% of the total respondents reported that they would be “very likely” to complete a marketing action such as filling out a survey, watching a video, shopping at online retailers or signing up for a subscription in order to get points for the games they play on leading social networks. By comparison, only 22.8% of the respondents reported that they would be willing and are able to buy the points using cash payment methods such as credit cards, PayPal, bank transfers or mobile billing.

Now Z-Man Games has added Taktika to its already packed 2010 release schedule. For a description of the game, let’s turn to Mary Prasad’s summary from her 2008 article on flicking games – that is, games in which you flick the pieces with your fingers or thumb to make them move:

This is a two-player game in which each player has an army of 10 brown or natural wood wooden disks. Each army is composed of three different units: four infantry, four archers, and two cavalry, and each unit type moves and “kills” in a different manner. The table top forms the battlefield. The winner is the player who “kills” six of his opponent’s units. Four special disks are included for optional scenarios.

No release date was announced for the new version from Z-Man Games. This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.

A new board game that pits 17th-century Colonists against New England’s Indian tribes is sparking a 21st-century skirmish between the publisher and Native American leaders.

The game, called King Philip’s War, allows players to defeat Colonial or Indian forces in “a momentous example of New England frontier savagery,” says Multi-Man Publishing, a military game company in Millersville, Md.

That quote comes from the opening paragraph of Multiman’s webpage for King Philip’s War, which is designed by John Poniske, and the full paragraph makes clear that the “savagery” took place on both sides of the battle:

King Philip’s War 1675-1676 was a momentous example of New England frontier savagery. A loose coalition of angry tribes inspired by King Philip (the Wampanoag sachem, Metacomet) burned and sacked settlements throughout the colonies of Massachusettes, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the then separate colony of Plymouth. Ultimately, more than 2600 Colonials were captured or killed. Twelve Colonial settlements were completely destroyed and six more heavily damaged. Boston itself very nearly came under attack. At the same time, countless Indian villages were burned and 6000 Indians were slain or captured, and sold into slavery. In all, 1,200 homes were burned, and vast stores of food destroyed. Metacomet himself was eventually ambushed, beheaded, and quartered.

For more details about King Philip’s War – which is currently in preorder status – visit the Multiman page linked to above.

Breakthrough includes two nine-panel, double-sided gameboards, with the countryside and beach battlefields on one board and the winter and desert battlefields on another. This expansion includes fifteen scenarios from Borg and Jacques “jdRommel” David that have never previously been offered in print, including Operation Crusader, Operation Amherst and two versions of the battle for Sword Beach. (Days of Wonder already provides an online Memoir ‘44 scenario application; search for “breakthrough” to see the scenarios currently available for download.)

To use Breakthrough you need to own a copy of Memoir ‘44. The press release from Days of Wonder notes that “[v]arious expansions, depending on the scenario being played, are highly recommended to fully enjoy this expansion, although players can substitute game pieces if they don’t own a specified expansion.” For a taste of which expansions you could use with Breakthrough, click on the image after the jump.

Days of Wonder expects to release Memoir ‘44: Breakthrough, with rules in English and French, in April 2010 in Europe and in May in North America. This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.

Kakuzu includes the familiar 9x9 playing grid and twenty double-sided number grids that follow the Sudoku pattern of having the numbers 1-9 in each row, column and 3x3 square without any of the numbers repeating. To start the game, all of the numbers are hidden under stones. On a turn, a player draws a number from 1 to 9 from a cloth bag, then reveals the number hiding under a stone. If the player finds the correct number, she keeps the stone and takes another turn; if not, the next player goes. Thus, memory becomes a Sudoku game mechanism alongside logic and deduction.

In addition to this title, Riedel notes that Old Town Solo, Schinderhannes Solo and Ostfriesenlauf Solo will soon be available in tin cases.

Hansa Teutonica—Unassuming Turned Contender

The first nominee is a game that I dismissed out of hand after reading about the game and looking over the components.  It seemed dry, bland, and uninspired.  It appeared to be just like a thousand other games, with nothing to distinguish itself or make it worth further investigation.  Hansa Teutonica was not at the top of just about anyone’s radar going into Essen 2009, but it took the board game community by storm at BGG.CON 2009, and has many clamoring for a reprint now.  While I find the rules and components to be underwhelming, it turns out the game itself is surprisingly good.  I have played the game nine times now (at all player counts from 2 to 5) and Hansa Teutonica is solidly my surprise hit of BGG.CON (just as Planet Steam was my surprise hit of the convention in 2008).

It’s an addictive game.  I find myself always wanting to play again so I can try a different strategy or try to refine the same strategy to get it to work.  You have so much control over the way the game plays out from beginning to end that you feel as if you should be able to accomplish what you set out to accomplish.  And yet there are so many different ways to score points that it’s easy to get distracted during the game by a short-term opportunity, at the expense of your long-term objectives.  The game has a very nice flow to it as the turns move quickly, with each player only adding a few grains of sand to the eventual beach of the game on any given turn.

One of the most remarkable things about Hansa Teutonica is how much interaction there is.  It’s a German-style game with plenty of wooden cubes and an overused theme, but multi-player solitaire this is not.  It’s an in your face, almost viciously contentious battle for control of the various trade routes and city guilds across the board.  The game’s displacement mechanism is reminiscent of, yet superior to, that employed in Endeavor, as it does not punish the defender for getting in the way, but rather rewards them and punishes the attacker, while somehow still retaining a significant incentive to attack.  I’d be remiss not to mention the fantastic use of a technology tree in this game, which provides a delicious tension between developing each skill a little bit for flexibility and control over your board position, versus developing fewer skills more fully for bonus points.

I should also mention that the game scales reasonably well from 2 to 5 players, but I enjoy it best with 3 or 4 players.  I was not particularly fond of the two-player and five-player versions.  The added chaos of 5 players and the extra time between turns made it less enjoyable, although it was still surprisingly not bad.  The variant two-player rules felt too restrictive to me, limiting where you could place, which discards the very free-form nature of the game; plus it adds an extra layer to think about with moving the special marker around, and you really don’t need something extra to think about and plan for in this game.  While the game works with 2 and 5 players, I think the sweet spot is in the middle, and I especially thought the two-player design diverged a bit too much from the regular game for my tastes.

All that being said, this game is bound to disappoint many because expectations are being raised too high during the time it will take for a widespread reprint to become available.  I, and many others at BGG.CON, were pleasantly surprised by Hansa Teutonica because there were no expectations.  Now that the game is being talked up by so many people, I don’t think it will impress people in the same way that I found myself impressed and caught off guard.  Hopefully people can enjoy it for what it is and not set the bar too high in the intervening months, but knowing how much I tend to anticipate unavailable games and how often they disappoint, and having seen the impact of delays on countless prior releases, I have significant trepidation over how well Hansa Teutonica will be received by the wider market.

Imperial 2030—Manipulation through Investment and Warfare: Refined

Imperial is another game that I originally wrote off before trying, writing in my report on Essen ‘06 that it seemed too close a sibling of Antike (which was a game I had tried and did not enjoy), but Imperial ended up being my Game of the Year for 2006.  The middle entry in Mac Gerdts’ rondel trilogy stands head and shoulders above its predecessor and successor.  The combination of the beauty and simplicity of the rondel mechanism, with the brutal machinations of a Europe where the Great Powers are torn in many directions by competing investors vying to manipulate the will of the governments and bend them to their financial purposes, is truly brilliant.

Imperial 2030 seemed like a risky proposition.  Attempting to design a follow-up to a game as well-received as Imperial seems like a daunting task, given the high standards to which it was bound to be held.  Imperial 2030 not only meets that lofty bar, but possibly exceeds its parent.  After only 3 plays of Imperial 2030, I can’t yet say whether I prefer it to the original, but I can unreservedly say that Gerdts has created a very worthy follow-up to his 2006 Game of the Year.  As a disclaimer, I should say that if you were not a fan of the original Imperial, then it’s unlikely that Imperial 2030 addresses your qualms.  However, if you did enjoy Imperial or admired it with some reservations even, then Imperial 2030 is well worth checking out.

I recommend starting with this video demo by Gerdts at Essen to get an explanation straight from the horse’s mouth.  I’ll summarize the high points for you here.  First, Imperial 2030 is a new map, and who doesn’t love new maps? They’re such a great way to get a new experience without having to learn a whole new set of rules (see, e.g., Age of Steam).  In particular, the new global map reduces the size of home nations so as to reduce the maximum number of factories and include more neutral territories and more water, giving you more territory to fight over and making naval convoys more significant.  Second (and perhaps more importantly), Imperial 2030 revises the rules for advancing extra spaces around the rondel so that it not longer costs a flat 2 million per space, but rather costs 1 plus the nation’s power multiplier.  This provides for a scaling cost that is lower at the beginning of the game (making it more feasible to do so early on) and higher at the end of the game for the high scoring nations (making it more expensive to skip from Taxation to Investor and back to Taxation in two turns).  Those are the principal advantages, but you’ve also got the introduction of the Suez Canal and Panama Canal, along with a new $30 million bond that allows country control to shift later in the game.  There’s truly a plethora of things in Imperial 2030 that make it potentially even superior to its progenitor, while still remaining perfectly true to the spirit of the game.  I hope to have the chance to play both games many more times as they each provide a nearly peerless experience when it comes to gaming.

Last Train to Wensleydale—Wallace Innovates Again

You might want to take my opinions on Martin Wallace’s many game designs with a grain of salt or two because my feelings seem to be inverted from the masses more often than not.  I have been disappointed with many of Wallace’s more recent designs, such as Automobile, Steel Driver, Brass, and After the Flood, so Last Train to Wensleydale is the return to greatness for Martin Wallace for me that Notre Dame was for Alea a few years back.  I’m a huge fan of some of his older designs, such as Liberte, Age of Steam, and Byzantium, and have been looking for a Treefrog game that I could enjoy without much luck until now.

Last Train to Wensleydale is fantastic because it’s a train-themed game that feels very different from most other train-themed games (I avoid using the phrase “train game” because of a mind-boggling level of debate over what qualifies as a “train game").  I enjoy Age of Steam, Railroad Tycoon, and Steam as much or more than the next guy, but it’s nice to have a break from figuring out those six-length deliveries for once.  And Wensleydale is so much more approachable and intuitive than the mind-boggling Chicago Express, another that I enjoy but have trouble wrapping my head around.  This is a game that focuses almost exclusively on its strong suit, which is short-term tactical decisions through the management of five different currencies, all of which can be used for multiple different purposes.  You have to balance your investment cubes (used for buying track and bidding in auctions), white influence (used for track building turn order and eminent domain to kick obstinate farmers out of key territory - I wonder how many other games feature eminent domain), brown influence (used for shipping turn order and purchasing trains), and red & green influence (used for connecting to major cities and selling track).  It’s a very tricky balancing act and you never seem to have enough of one crucial currency at the right time, and a surplus of another type that you don’t need and can’t use.

The game is not without its downsides, including an ugly game board (which is putting it rather mildly), a fiddly setup (add a bunch of small wooden bits to the board, only to have to remove many of them shortly thereafter), an anticlimactic final turn, and one potentially overpowered geographical area of the board (need further plays to evaluate, although the auction should help compensate by driving up the price of being the first with access to this area if everyone is aware).  However, despite all of that, Last Train to Wensleydale is a game that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed playing six times so far and that I look forward to exploring many more times.  I’ve taught the game to a variety of different people and have seen reactions across the spectrum.  As a result, I don’t think it’s a game for everyone as it’s somewhat quirky and kind of an odd ball game (what else could you expect from a game ostensibly about mango papaya cheese).  But if you’re looking for something a bit different and you enjoy some of Wallace’s quirky designs then be sure to check out Wensleydale.

Mr. Jack in New York—Subterfuge and Guile: Refined

2010 was apparently a year for successful follow-up games.  Like Imperial 2030 above, Mr. Jack in New York is another fantastic sequel vying for Game of the Year.  However, as with my caveat above, Mr. Jack in New York is an excellent stand-alone game that meets or exceeds the high bar set by its predecessor, but it doesn’t change enough to make it something you’re likely to enjoy if you didn’t enjoy the original Mr. Jack.  Having played the original Mr. Jack 49 times, I can say I’m a big fan of this Cathala-Maublanc team effort (not to mention the fantastic artwork of Pierre Lechevalier, who has thankfully returned for another round across the Atlantic).  I’ve had the chance now to play the sequel 5 times and I am fairly certain that it is a very worthy successor.

It’s clear that Cathala and Maublanc have learned a lot about the game system in the intervening 3 years since Mr. Jack was released.  They have tweaked that system just enough to create a stand-alone game worth owning, while leaving it still true to the original.  Mr. Jack in New York offers a new board and 8 new characters with all new special abilities (although some are especially reminiscent of special abilities in the original game).  The most striking thing about the new board and gameplay is that it is much more open.  There are fewer buildings and gaslights obstructing your path at the outset because the players build them over the course of the game with the new characters’ special abilities.  The game is much more dynamic than the original.  Where Mr. Jack feels static, Mr. Jack in New York feels fluid.  I don’t have sufficient experience with the latter yet to say for certain that it’s definitely an improvement, but I get that sense from my initial plays and I trust that the designers have learned more about the game system since its release (and particularly given their work on the excellent Mr. Jack Extension).  While this is not a game for people who didn’t enjoy the original (unless you simply had small nitpicks), for fans of the original, this is proving to translate remarkably well in its journey across the pond.

And The Winner Is...

Stronghold!  Poland caps off the Non-German three-peat, following on the heels of the award going to the Czech Republic and France.  Designer Ignacy Trzewiczek and Publisher Portal take home the top honors for 2009, ten years after the publishing house first opened its doors.

If you don’t know much about Stronghold yet then you should check out this video explanation of the game from the Geekdo booth at Essen 2009.  Or for a more stylized video about the game, check out this dramatic trailer on YouTube.  It’s basically a game about a siege, like Helm’s Deep in Lord of the Rings but without the license, where one side plays the invader and the other plays the defender.  I gather it has rules for playing with more than two players, but like Queen’s Gambit and War of the Ring, I imagine these might be fairly tacked on as the game lends itself to being a two-player duel.

I had read much of the buzz surrounding Stronghold back in October 2009 and been completely unmoved.  It was clearly one of the most highly anticipated games leading up to Essen, right up there with Dungeon Lords and At the Gates of Loyang (incidentally both duds in my opinion), but for some reason Stronghold didn’t appeal to me whatsoever.  Ignacy Trzewiczek’s Game Designer’s Journal on Boardgame News detailing the origin and development of Stronghold did not initially capture my interest in the way it captured the interest of so many other BoardGameGeek users (although revisiting after falling in love with the game has been a treat).  For some inexplicable reason, I was remarkably disinterested in Stronghold before actually trying it out, considering all of the buzz leading up to its release.

Despite all of that, half-way into my first play of Stronghold I was completely hooked.  I realized I was on the edge of my seat, anxiously planning my moves, and eager to see what my opponent would do next.  It was a remarkably tense, exciting, and engaging game.  It’s a highly asymmetric game, with one side playing the Attacker and the other side playing the Defender, and the two sides functioning extremely differently.  For the first game I played as the Defender and it was interesting to see how I was constantly afraid that the Attacker was about to break into the castle, while the Attacker was constantly afraid that I would rebuff him at every rampart.  We were both convinced that the other was winning and we were both nervous wrecks.  I knew from that first game that this has all the makings of a great game!

Stronghold is a fatalistic game about a siege where the Defender is doomed and the Attacker will inevitably breach the castle, so the outcome of the game is not based on whether or not that occurs, but rather based on how much glory each side earns over the course of the siege.  The Attacker begins the game with 10 glory points, but must give the Defender 1 glory point at the end of each turn in which he or she fails to breach the castle.  The Attacker can earn extra glory points by completing certain defined “glorious deeds.” The Defender begins the game with 4 glory points, which the Defender can give up in order to gain various one-time special abilities.  The game ends once the Attacker finally breaks into the castle, which leads to a few final points being awarded, and the winner being the person who has the most points.  While the Attacker will ultimately “win” the siege by breaking into the castle and the Defender’s troops are doomed, the game is nevertheless exciting and engaging.  If the Defender can hold out for enough turns, then he or she will earn enough glory to win the game.  This focus on lasting enough turns while the opponent is hurrying to breach the castle is the definition of tense.  It is truly a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat affair that makes most other games look tame and dull by comparison.

The mechanics of Stronghold are very clever.  There are 6 phases in each turn: Supplies, Machines, Equipment, Training, Rituals, and Dispatch.  Each phase is represented by a card.  The Supplies and Dispatch phases are the same every game so there is one card for each.  The middle four phases can be very different from game to game, and there are five different possible cards for each of those phases.  The Attacker randomly selects two cards out of the five for each of those phases, looks at them, and then picks which one he wants to use for the given game.  The cards show different types of machines and equipment the Attacker can build, different training to undergo and rituals to perform.  This makes each game surprisingly different.  I’ve played Stronghold 10 times and am still seeing brand new game states and item combinations each time.

The second clever mechanic besides the variable phase cards is the hourglasses.  The Attacker draws a random assortment of fourteen units (strength 1, 2, and 3) from a bag each turn, and allocates them to a variety of tasks throughout the phases leading up to Dispatch (where the remaining units are sent marching towards the Defender’s castle walls).  These tasks include things like building catapults, ladders, and banners, or training as archers or artillery men.  For each action that the Attacker takes, the Defender earns an “hourglass” token per unit spent, which the Defender can use for numerous different defensive actions in a variety of the Defender’s buildings: Forge, Workshop, Scout Headquarters, Cathedral, Barracks, and Guard Tower.  For example, the Defender can train or move units, and build cannons or pots of boiling oil.  This means that the Attacker controls the pace and flow of the game, only giving the Defender hourglasses when he consciously decides that doing so is worthwhile, and potentially denying the Defender hourglasses at a critical moment in the game, which effectively paralyzes the Defender.  The Attacker is in the driver’s seat, dictating the terms of the siege, and yet struggling to overcome a defense that initially appears nearly insurmountable.

There is obviously a lot going on in this game, but it all makes sense and fits together remarkably well, which means that despite the game’s significant complexity you don’t need to constantly be referring to the rules.  The game just clicks and works in a way that most games this long and complicated rarely do.

Playing Stronghold always makes me want to play it again.  In fact, I’ve frequently played it twice back to back.  While playing as the Defender in one game, I’m coming up with all sorts of grand plans about how I would play as the Attacker and easily win the game.  Then I try to implement those plans and fail miserably.  This just makes me want to play the game again even more!  I’ll try a strategy focused on siege machines and a feint towards one side of the castle, and then when my plans come crashing down around me, I eagerly want to set the game back up and try again with the same or a different strategy.  It’s an addictive and engrossing experience that is hard to stop thinking about and pondering long after the game has finished and been packed away.  It’s that after-the-fact reflection that transforms a game from great into something truly special and worthy of being Game of the Year.

Honorable Mentions—The Next Five

Limiting myself to just 5 nominees was very difficult, and since it’s fairly arbitrary, I might as well mention another 5 great games from 2009 here.  In another year any of the following five might have garnered a nomination, but it was a competitive field and so these games just missed the cut.

• Campaign Manager 2008 - An excellent addition to my list of Super Fillers for 2, joining the elite ranks of games like Hansa and Through the Desert.  Having only played the game 6 times so far, I don’t know the system or the cards well enough to fully evaluate the game, but I find myself thinking back on the game after it finishes, thinking about things I could have done differently and things I’d like to try in my next game, which is certainly a very good sign.  It’s particularly hard to judge after a few games because you really don’t see much of the game in a single play.  At the beginning of the game players select 15 cards out of 45 possible card to make up their deck for the entire game, and then you play the game itself by cycling through those 15 cards repeatedly (although perhaps the “game itself” is more the selection process upfront than the resolution process).  So you don’t see the majority of the cards in one game or the majority of the possible strategies because ideally you’ve selected cards that work together to form a single cohesive strategy.  There are many possible approaches that I’d like to try out, and hopefully further play will reveal tension between the various approaches that will make the decision-making enjoyably challenging.
• Macao - I was on the fence about Macao after my first play, but with 5 plays under my belt now I find that Macao is growing on me.  The luck of the dice rolling is not insignificant, but it is manageable, and the variety of the cards is very nice.  The number of factors to consider when selecting dice is also more numerous than I originally noticed, including not only quantity and timing, but also pairing up colors and the city quarters.  While Macao is very different from Feld’s two preceding Alea titles - Notre Dame and In the Year of the Dragon - it nonetheless feels very similar.  Fans of Notre Dame and/or In the Year of the Dragon are certainly more likely to feel right at home with Macao.  On its face Macao appears to be a kinder, gentler game than either of those, but underlying that I believe is a nasty engine that ruthlessly hands out negative points to unwary gamers.  The game has prompted many to trot back out the phrase that was used incessantly upon the release of Yspahan a few years back - “it uses dice, but in an interesting/unique/clever way.” Macao has the group collectively roll a handful of multi-colored dice, and then everyone individually selects which three dice they’d like to use.  You then get action points in the color of the die equal to its face value, but don’t receive them until X turns later where X equals the face value of the die.  This is very straightforward in practice because if you choose the red die showing a 2 then you get 2 red action points 2 turns from now, but if you choose the blue die showing a 5 then you get 5 blue action points 5 turns from now.  You need these actions points to build buildings (different color action points build different types of buildings) that give you victory points and money (used for purchasing victory points of course).  You can also use action points to advance on the turn order track (analogous to the Year of the Dragon turn order track), or to purchase chits representing various goods, or to sail your ship throughout Europe to deliver those chits for victory points.  Did you catch that?  You sail your ship throughout Europe.  It doesn’t make any sense.  It didn’t hit me until a fellow player pointed it out, but once she did I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Just look at that board.  You sail around to cities like Marseilles, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, and the space between them is all water. Is this some post-apocalyptic Europe where the entire continent has been flooded except for a few select cities?  I smell a last minute re-theme!  Regardless, as you’ve probably gathered from the general description above, the theme is irrelevant because this is a game about the cleverness of the interlocking mechanics, in the classic Feld mold.  Fortunately the dice rolling doesn’t interfere too much with your planning and decision-making, but rather provides a random element that players need to work around and adapt to.
• Power $truggle (also known as Macht$piele) - It looks like Valley Games chose exceedingly well at Essen this past year when buying the leftover stock of Power $truggle, Stronghold, and Hansa Teutonica for distribution.  None of these were games that I was particularly looking forward to.  In fact, when I saw the Valley Games booth selling these three games at BGG.CON, I wasn’t really tempted to buy any of them.  But over the past 5 months, I’ve happened to have the chance to try each of them one at a time every few months, and I’ve been repeatedly and consistently impressed.  I guess the Valley Games folks have an excellent eye for picking out good designs from the over 500 new games at Essen.  I suppose I’ve learned to trust them on the next game they decide to buy up and distribute, and trust my own instincts a bit less.  Despite garnering the #2 spot on the Fairplay list at Essen, I was largely unfamiliar with this game going in.  A friend purchased the game and taught the game, which is rare since I’m often the one to purchase the games, read the rules, and teach them, but I’m glad someone else discovered this gem for me.  I really enjoyed playing it, am very eagerly looking forward to playing it again, and think it could definitely have been a Top 5 nominee with more plays.  Power $truggle is a highly cynical capitalist game of bribery and backstabbing.  While most games with cheeky tones like this lack the mechanics and framework to actually work, this one is an exception.  A friend of mine named John Brier surprised me by comparing this game to Karl-Heinz Schmiel’s Tribune, but the more I think about it, the more I realize he’s right.  As he says, it’s a lot like Tribune in that you’re trying to complete 4 out of 6 victory conditions, and you’re vying to control various factions, each of which gives you a different special ability.  But as he goes on to explain, unlike Tribune, the action phase in Power $truggle doesn’t consist of boringly collecting numbered cards, but rather has a much more interesting array of options and decision-making possibilities.  Unlike Tribune, which I also found to be a surprising disappointment from such a great designer, Power $truggle was a joy to play.  The comparison is to say that despite the game’s similarities, where Tribune is flawed, Power $truggle is solid.  Part of what makes Power $truggle better is its thematic integration, with the event cards, available actions, and departments fitting well into the overall narrative of the game.  Beyond that though, the game also excels due to the well-tailored array of options during the action phase of the game, which is just wide enough to give you a feeling of openness and the ability to creatively devise and implement a long-term strategy, and implement it with a variety of short-term tactical possibilities, without feeling too overwhelmingly broad.  It’s hard to get that action phase menu just right; many games make the menu too expansive while others make it too confining, but Power $truggle nicely manages to find the Goldilocks equilibrium.
• Shipyard - Those Czechs sure know how to make board games!  I’m a fan of Rondels (e.g., Imperial) and this has 5 of them!  The more the merrier.  You have so many balls in the air to keep track of during this game, but it still manages to move at a decent pace (because of the Rondels). It’s a game that is complex and long on one level, but remarkably simple on another level.  As in any Rondel game, each turn is a simple matter of selecting one out of a few possible spaces and then executing a fairly straightforward action.  It’s only the sum of your many turns that weave an intricate tapestry of moves and alternative possible paths.  There are so many roads not taken in a game like this that you can easily ponder what you could have done differently for a long time after the game is packed up and back on the shelf.
• Tobago - Refreshingly unique and original, plus fantastic components and family friendly.  The treasure distribution rules in particular were very neat.  When I first heard about Tobago it was described to me as a deduction game that has the potential to win the Spiel des Jahres, which made me very disinterested because I neither like deduction games nor SdJ contenders generally.  Fortunately I gave Tobago a try and discovered that it’s certainly not a deduction game whatsoever, and while it may be an SdJ contender, it’s actually clever and fun (which may disqualify it from SdJ contention).  Tobago is a game where you take turns playing cards to narrow down where various treasures can be located on an island (e.g., within two spaces of a palm tree or not in a forest) or moving your vehicle around to pick up a treasure or amulet (used for getting an extra turn or avoiding the effects of a cursed treasure).  It’s a joint effort in a way to narrow down the location of the various treasures, but there’s no deduction in the game because you’re not determining a pre-existing location, but rather creating the location yourselves by playing cards that further circumscribe the possible locations.  Once the treasure is ultimately picked up, you deal out a number of treasure cards (ranging in value from 2 to 6) equal to the number cards used to determine the treasure’s location, plus two.  Each player gets to look at a number of cards equal to their contribution to determining the treasure’s location (plus 1 for the person who picked up the treasure), and then all treasure cards are shuffled (including 1 card that no one got to look at).  Treasure cards are publicly revealed one at a time and offered to the latest contributor first, moving up the chain. Each player can take one treasure card per contribution, and given your limited secret information, you have some idea what the value of the possible treasure cards will be.  You may have also seen a “curse” card, which terminates treasure distribution when revealed, so you’ll want to take whatever is available and run for the hills if you know a curse is coming.  It’s a push-your-luck system that somewhat rewards greater and later contributions, but has enough of a random element to keep it light and family friendly.  The beauty of the game components definitely contributes to the experience in no small way, but the mechanics alone are also worth admiring.

That wraps up another great year of games.  2009 proved once and for all that the German monopoly on good board game design is over.  The Czech Republic, France, and Poland have seen to that, along with many other countries around the world that are delivering solid designs these days.  Regardless of where it happens to be from though, Stronghold simply excels and richly deserves recognition as 2009’s best game.  It was a year where many hopes were dashed with numerous top game prospects failing to live up to expectations, but you’d never know it looking at this list of ten.  If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that I shouldn’t be too quick to trust my instincts about a game before trying it because I’m a surprisingly poor judge of what I’m going to enjoy and what I’m going to dislike until I actually have the chance to sit down with a game and experience it for myself.  I’ll certainly remind myself to keep an open mind and try as many possible new releases to see what really works in practice, not just on paper (or the screen).  Rather than trying to judge what games are worth trying from just reading about them, perhaps I’ll let others like Valley Games sift through all of the chaff to find the wheat, or the noise to find the signal if you prefer.  With that being said and having tried most of the notable releases from the past year, these are the ten games that I think mark 2009 as another in a long line of wonderful years for gaming.

Sean D. MacDonald has followed a similar path with his trick-taking game The Crow & The Pitcher, the theme of which comes from a fable attributed to Aesop in which a thirsty crow fills a pitcher with pebbles one by one until the water in the pitcher rises high enough that the crow can drink. (3-4 players, ages 12+, 30-40 minutes, $15)

In MacDonald’s game, the card deck consists of 27 stone cards (nine each in three colors), 9 drought cards, and 12 pitcher cards; the stone and drought cards are shuffled together and dealt evenly to each player. The game lasts nine or twelve rounds depending on the number of players, with a new pitcher card being revealed each round. The lead player plays a card, and the other players must follow suit, if possible. Add the stone cards of the suit led, disregarding those equal or higher than the value of the pitcher. If the sum of those cards equals or tops the value of the pitcher, the player with the highest valued stone card takes the trick; if the sum doesn’t “fill the pitcher,” then the player with the lowest valued stone card takes both the trick and the pitcher.

Once a player breaks the drought suit by playing one, drought cards can be led on a trick, with the highest drought “winning” the trick. Once the round ends, player total their points, with stone cards being worth 1-3 points (with lower values worth more than high ones), drought cards being worth negative points, and pitchers worth -5 points. Thus, if you contribute the least to filling a pitcher, then you’re punished by taking home the pitcher.

MacDonald is taking preorders for The Crow & The Pitcher through his own NoMADS Games on a standalone website, which includes preliminary rules for the game. (I say “preliminary” because a number of questions about what to do in certain circumstances aren’t answered. Presumably those few details will be clarified prior to the game’s release.)

Each player has a fleet of nine ships, with three each of small, medium and large ships worth 1, 2 or 3 points when captured. Players start the game with their fleets in opposite corners, with the ships face-down to show that they are shielded. On a turn, you can either unshield a ship (by placing it face-up) or move an unshielded ship in the direction it faces. After moving, you reorient the ship or shield it.

You destroy an opponent’s ship by landing on it, but you can destroy a shielded ship only if it’s smaller than your attacking vessel. Of course if you plop a ship down where it can attack the enemy once it unshields itself, then you’ve pinned that piece. Destroy eight points of ships to win the game. Complete rules are more pics are located on the Star Fleet Scramble page on the nestorgames website.