I was reading an article on Wizards of the Coast's Magic website this morning (
Flight of Fancy), and it reminded me of a revalation I had at GenCon this summer, when listening to a bunch of people talk about Magic.
Like Randy, I first thought of the art on cards as optional, a nice touch, perhaps, and maybe, just maybe, a tool to help the imagination place you in this fantasy world. At GenCon, I realized that players rely on the artwork to tell which spell has just been played. For most cards, the experienced player immediately knows and understands what the card means. Thus, players react to the sight of a Fireball, or a Platinum Angel, or a Two-Headed Dragon as objects in this fantasy world, rather then cards in a strategy game.
It's difficult to explain, but this game allows players to cast spells and summon creatures in a shared imaginary world, in the same way that good FPS computer games allow you to run around and shoot people (: The artwork does more then cover up the seams of reality - it creates this fantasy world. The consistency of the artwork allows players to immerse themselves into the world.
Well, I'll stop here, and hope that some of this difficult-to-explain stuff made it through. Have a happy Thanksgiving. I'm going to take a break from blogging until next month.
So, what have I been reading lately? Science fictiony short stories.
Strange Travelers
$14.95
Session Report: November 18, 2003
Games Played: Dvonn, New England, Ra
Gamers: Joyce, Chris, Chip, (Josh, Lewis, Eric, Mark)
Thanks to Chris for hosting.
DVONN (0:15)
Joyce: 16
Chip: 12
Joyce and I were the first to arrive, so I brought out Dvonn to get a quick game in while the others arrived.
I think Dvonn is best played fast and loose, especially with a new player. At the end of the game, I saw that I was in a pretty bad state - handfuls of my pieces had been swiped off the board early in the game.
This is a pretty good two-player game, but one quick round doesn't do it justice.
NEW ENGLAND (1:02 + 0:10 rules/setup)
Chris: 30
Chip: 28
Joyce: 25
Chris was kind enough to forgo the other game that Josh et. al. were playing to teach Joyce and me this game. We rewarded his kindness by letting him win (:
As the tiles were explained, I found myself fascinated by the merchant's ability and the 4 point bonus for having the majority of merchants. I tried to gather up as many as I could, and Chris didn't get a single one. Joyce, on the other hand, forced me to defend my majority a few times. I ended the game with an obscene amount of cash. I probably should have been more offensive sooner, but I didn't have a good idea of how many rounds remained in the game.
I didn't get any barns, which I thought I would regret later, but I don't think it hurt me at all. I didn't pick any ships either.
Chris started the last round and picked the 10-coin to go first. I believe if I had picked first during the last round, I may have won, but I'm not exactly sure.
In a word, this game is elegant. I really like the simplicity of the rules, and the balance between the different elements (board space, meeples that need undeveloped tiles, and developing tiles for victory points). I look forward to playing this game again.
RA (0:45 + 0:13 rules/setup)
Chris: 72
Joyce: 46
Chip: 19
Chris also taught us Ra. I did very poorly. I think I'm too conservative on some bidding games, and, as a result, I ended up with half as many tiles as other players. Joyce was winning after the first two epochs, but Chris scored a massive 47 points at the end of the game to take the lead.
Ug. This might go in the pile of games that I simply don't get.
I've been a gaming machine recently! Last Saturday's gaming convention, and not just Monday, but Tuesday night SOG sessions! It's great (:
Also, the Jedi Princess and I are going on vacation later this month, so I expect we'll play a game or two then, as well.
Session Report: November 17, 2003
Games Played: Quandary, Princes of Florence
Gamers: Chip, Mike, Joyce, Rob, Chris
Thanks to Rob for hosting.
Apparently, it pays to request games in advance (: Both games that I played were on my "want to try again" list.
QUANDARY (0:27)
Rob: 93
Chip: 89
Mike: 78
Joyce: 75
We played four rounds, during with Joyce and Rob battled for the lead. Rob's daughter was kind enough to tell us, in Spanish, the colors of Rob's tiles (:
I like this game. It's fun and fairly quick, with some interesting choices to make. A fail proof strategy eludes me, but I enjoy experimenting with it.
PRINCES OF FLORENCE (1:50 + 0:15 rules)
Rob: 54
Chip: 49
Chris: 49
Mike: 41
Joyce: 34
We explained the rules to Joyce, who was new to the game. I hope that I explained the translation of Work Value to Prestige Points and/or cash correctly, as it is one of the more confusing aspects of the game, and a source of much frustration the last time I played.
The game did move more quickly then my previous experience, but not as much as I had hoped. The last two rounds are fairly painful and long, unfortunately. I enjoyed the first five rounds quite a bit, and planning my next few turns made the inevitable downtime less noticeable. Unfortunately, during my sixth turn I needed to get a recruiter card or not produce any more works for the rest of the game. Rob found himself in the same position, and I made him pay dearly for the card. It was ultimately worthwhile, however, as he produced a work with a value of 30 during his last turn to take the lead.
Personally, I think this game is excellent at five rounds, but not at seven. I'm not really interested in playing a full game of it again for a while.
Session Report: November 15, 2003
Games Played: Clans, Apples to Apples, King's Breakfast, Metro, Magic
Gamers: Bob, Mary, Carl O., Sara, Chip, Bill, Charlie, John, Brendon, Nick, Justin, Carl
Ellis Technical School in Danielson, CT hosts a mini-gaming convention each year. This was the 15th year (and the first one I attended). Thanks to John Haskell for organizing this event.
http://www.cttech.org/ellis/student/simulation-club/main.htm
CLANS (0:25 + 0:10 rules)
Sara: 41
Chip: 38
Carl: 31
Mary: 29
Bob: 26
We played with an illegal number of players without any adverse affects (that I could see).
I tried to create a village each turn without paying much attention to my own villages. I did try to move my huts away from each other in a vague attempt to increase the chances that I would be involved in most of the villages. As some huts will remain singletons at the end of the game, this wasn't the best strategy.
I like this game for a number of reasons. It's quick, it's fun to move the huts around, it's fairly easy to explain to new players, and I haven't solved it yet.
APPLES TO APPLES (0:20)
Carl: 4 cards
Bill: 3 cards
eight other people: less cards
We were looking for a game for ten people, and Carl suggested Apples to Apples. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but there aren't that many games for that many people, and it was, thankfully, brief.
The game itself was moderately fun, but I think it's best with a group of friends that know each other well. As a social game, it falls a little flat with people that you've just met. Still, there are worse ways of spending 20 minutes.
KING'S BREAKFAST (0:17 + 0:08 rules)
Charlie:56
Carl: 55
Sara: 53
Josh: 52
Chip: 44
After Apples to Apples, we broke into smaller groups, and Sara and I opted to play King's Breakfast. We shuffled the 5 dragons into 5 more or less equal portions of the deck to make sure they didn't all come up at the same time.
I thought that the penalty for eating more then the king would be more severe (negative points a la Coloretto), so I played far too conservatively. I can't decide how important it is to remember what each player takes each turn. It does seem that card counting would be a good advantage, but this game may be friendly to those with poor memories.
I'd like to try this game a few more times, but my initial impressions of it are fairly positive.
METRO (0:21 + 0:05 rules/setup)
Chip: 51
Nick: 47
Charlie:29
John: 24
Brendon:24
Sara: 23
Charlie had suggested Metro a few times, so we agreed to give it a try. It's a tile-laying game in which players try to create long paths for their trains and short paths for their opponent's trains.
Following the paths for each train later in the game can get confusing, and you can accidentally help other players. Fortunately, each tile can only be played in a single orientation, so you don't have to consider all the possibilities that rotating the tile could generate.
Generally speaking, the trains that score later in the game will score more points. This makes it difficult to tell who is winning - in fact, the player that leads early in the game will probably lose later (as their trains score low points early on).
This is a fun game, and I'd like to try it again.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING (2:00 tournement)
Brenden:2 (duels)
Chip: 0
Defeated: Nick, Justin, Sara
Eliminated by Carl
We played a modified double-elimination Type 1.5 tournament. There were about 40 participants. Steve Maynard, from the Time Machine in CT, organized the tournament.
The players on the winner's half played the best of 3 matches, while those on the other track played only a single duel. Players that lose on the winner's track move to the other track. Players that lost on the other track were eliminated. There were prizes for the top 3 players.
I like this variation on double-elimination. I think it speeds things up a bit, while still giving players that second chance. Type 1.5 is an interesting format. I was initially worried that most players would have highly tuned and tested decks that consistently won by turn 4. I heard rumors of one such deck, but I didn't actually face it. Most of the decks I played against seemed like reasonable casual decks.
One of the advantages of playing a more restrictive format, for example, Block constructed, is that you will have an idea of what you may need to prepare for and defend against. For example, my deck relied on the threshold mechanic from a recent block. If my opponents had some anti-threshold cards (one which removed all cards from my graveyard, for example), they could have stopped my deck cold. As this was 1.5, however, I was able to "blind-side" my opponent with this mechanic. In general, it seems that the matches could just be determined by which player could blindside his or her opponent first. Fortunately, this wasn't really the case in this particular tournament.
My initial match was against a similar green deck with Armadillo Cloak and Rith, the Awakener. It was sort of close, but his deck was better. I played Nick next, with a blue deck that featured Seasinger (tap to take control of target creature, if its controller controls an island). I suggested that he might want to add some Sea's Claims and Phantasmal terrains into his deck to make it work more consistently.
I defeated Justin who had a black deck, and then was paired with Sara. I was able to defeat her Armadillo Cloak deck by overwhelming her with big creatures. Finally, I was defeated by Carl's Elfball deck.
The Register has an article on the growth of computer gaming over television. It's certainly true for me.
"It is nothing for a game player to have 20 to 40 games and if these provide up to 100 hours of enthrallment, then over the years that’s some 30 billion hours lost from other activities.
Many of those are lost from television viewing hours. That’s something like 3 per cent to 4 per cent of all global TV viewing hours lost purely to games. And many of the individuals that are lost from that viewing are either now, or will be in future, high earning, key targets for advertising. "
Yes, EllisCon was fantastic! There were about half as many people as the Unity Games conventions, which made for a managable number. Most people were playing either minatures or historical simulations (not my cup of tea), but we met some friendly people early on with a stack of games we recoginzed.
We played Clans, Apples to Apples, Metro, and King's Breakfast. We also participated in a Magic Type 1.5 tournement. It was double elimination, and both the Jedi Princess and myself lost our first rounds. We hung in for three more rounds until we were paired with each other! Ultimately, neither of us placed high enough to win any prizes.
I'll have a full session report later on.
