A beautiful photo at Carcassonne by Andy (or the demonstration version of Carcassonne has got out of hand)

Following on from my Alhambra at the Alhambra post, just this week my friend Andy visited Carcassonne and he took Carcassonne the game with him.  He didn’t know of my Alhambra visit but, instead, was inspired by my photo of meeple at the world’s highest pass (5,416 m / 17,769 feet).

Here is one of his photos which is an absolutely superb shot.  Is it just me thinking, “I wonder if that city’s actually finished?” and “That’s a lot of players sharing one road.”

You’ll note how Andy has all 5 colours of meeple from Carcassonne in his photo whereas my photo of multiple meeple in the Himalayas only has 4 colours.  The reason for that is that one of the meeple fell down a gap between the stones on the large cairn where I took the photo as I set them up.  I heard it fall way into the 4-foot high pile of stones so I knew he was a goner.  They say never leave a man on the mountain, but he was totally unreachable. Read the rest of this entry »

Some years ago a friend of mine who is a teacher told me about a co-operative exercise he’d created for his students where they organised search-and-rescue operations.  It sounded great and we discussed how it had potential for a board game as he plays some Eurogames.  So, I was very interested when Meltdown 2020 was announced.

In Meltdown 2020, players are trying to evacuate their meeple from the area where reactors are starting to meltdown.  Each player starts with 3 vehicles which each have a speed (spaces it can move) and a capacity (max number of meeple it can carry simultaneously).  The vehicles are a bus (spd:2 cap:4), car (spd:3 cap:3) and a helicopter (spd:4 cap 2). Read the rest of this entry »

Playing Alhambra at the Alhambra

Some years ago, I visited the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.  It seemed only right that I took the game Alhambra with me and managed to play a game of Alhambra at the Alhambra itself.  The photo proving this is below – it’s not a beautiful photo to be honest but it’s the only proof photo we took.

Since then I have been wanting to play more games named after a location whilst at the location (especially Escape From Colditz – yeah, not a great game these days but still…)  I missed the opportunity to play Rome in Rome when there a few years ago (rookie error not to have taken that with me) and I didn’t own Pompeii when I went there either.  So, many opportunities (Manhattan, San Francisco, the list is very long…) but I didn’t have the idea when I visited those.

Anyway, it’s a goal I now have.  Thinking of which, I need to borrow a copy of London and get that one done as I’m there all the time.  I haven’t decided where I stand on games with names that include a location – I’m not sure if they count – for example, Letters From Whitechapel if played in Whitechapel, or Looting London played in London.

Have you played a game at its real location?

Tschak! is a small card game where players are trying to gain treasure and avoid monsters but the gameplay offers something rather clever.

The 40 cards consist of wizards, warriors and dwarves with different values on them.  Each player is dealt 3 of each, plus one artefact card making a hand of 10 cards.  Players will assault 4 towers (one per round) and the player with most victory points (VPs) at the end wins.

Each tower has 3 levels played in order and each level has a random treasure and monster placed on it.  For each level, players play a total of 3 cards and the player with the highest combined value of cards gets the treasure (VPs) and the player with the lowest gets the monster (negative VPs).   A couple of the cards have special abilities: one wizard’s value is only the same as the most powerful wizard played by another player, and the artefact card doubles your weakest card.

Each level is played slightly differently.  On level 1, players simultaneously play 1 card at a time from their hands three times to make their total.  On level 2, players simultaneously play 2 cards and then 1 card.  On level 3, players play all 3 cards simultaneously.  This leaves each player with 1 card and these earn their owners 3, 2 and 1 gold based on the highest card values (gold being worth 1 VP each too). Read the rest of this entry »

Initially, Trajan looks like a complicated game but it isn’t really – it just offers choices all built around a clever, but not over-powering, central mechanic.

GAMEPLAY
Players are trying to score victory points (VPs) by fulfilling the people’s demands and furthering Roman power.  Each turn, a player gets to perform one of the 6 actions: building, shipping, forum, senate, military, and Trajan.  So, the overview is simple, but the mechanics and choices are what really deliver a great game.

Determining the Action to Take
On their turn, players can not simply choose any action they wish.  Instead, each player’s player board shows 6 pots each relating to one specific action.  In these pots are 12 coloured pieces (6 coloured pairs).  On their turn, a player takes all of the pieces from any one pot and distributes them one at a time into the next pots going clockwise from where they took the pieces from.  (This distribution game mechanic is widely known from the game Mancala – a traditional game in Africa and some parts of Asia dating back as far as 600 AD). Read the rest of this entry »

Last Will is a game where players must be the first to spend some money left to them by their uncle.  The first to prove they can enjoy such riches the most (fastest) will then be the sole heir to the rest of the massive inheritance.  In essence, the game is an interesting mix of worker placement with elements of efficiency engine too, but there are lots of things to balance.

Each round consists of several steps.  First, players take turns selecting their place on the actions chart – a player’s position on the chart determines the number of workers (errand boys) they will place (1 or 2), the number of actions they will spend (playing cards and spending money) and the number of cards they will take from the decks (giving them options on how to spend money or other abilities), plus it determines the order of play for that turn too.  This multi-dimensional choice is an excruciatingly interesting decision to make, especially as only one player can select each of the mixture of options.  (It’s a bit like the initial choice of what time to get up in Fresco but even harder to select.) Read the rest of this entry »

There were loads of entries into the Dark Minions competition and I am pleased to announce that the winner is Chris Tucker.  The copy of Z-Man’s Dark Minions is on its way to him.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  Also, thanks to Zev at Z-Man Games who provided the copy of the game for the competition.  The photo shows me and Zev when he gave the prize copy of the game to me at Spiel early on Thursday morning.

A review of the game will be posted soon and you can read my preview of Dark Minions for details in the meantime.

James.

This year, I’m going to cover Spiel in Essen a bit differently than previously.  Rather than try to explain a game (even just my most basic thoughts) in 140 characters via Twitter, which is tricky and can easily not do a game justice, I shall be posting photos of the games I play on Twitter as well.  I shall post the photos to this blog too – hopefully once per day.  Theoretically I could post photos to both Twitter and my blog from my iPhone but the data costs in Europe are very high so I’ll use Twitter as the live feed and post the day’s photos on the blog later.

So, if you want to see what I’m playing as well as read my comments on the latest new releases at Spiel, follow my twitter @Metagames

Elder Sign is a game set in the Arkham Horror (H. P. Lovecraft) setting  by Fantasy Flight Games.  This time it’s a co-operative dice game where players are investigators inside a museum trying to find enough elder signs to ensure the Great Old One doesn’t enter this world, or (and much more unlikely) to defeat it if it does awaken.

On their turn, a player can choose to attempt to accomplish one of the 6 situations in the museum currently available.  The player rolls 6 special dice (showing results like investigations, peril, etc.) and tries to get enough results that match any of the tasks on the card.  For example, one situation card may show 2 tasks: one requiring 2 lore scrolls, and another requiring 1 peril plus 2 investigations plus 1 terror.  If a player completes one of the tasks, they set the dice needed to do so aside and can roll the remaining dice again to try to complete more tasks on the situation card.  If the player doesn’t complete any of the remaining tasks on a roll, they discard a dice and re-roll their remaining dice again until they complete all tasks or fail.  Players can use special items, spells, allies, etc. that they’ve gained along the way to roll a few better dice, plus the player may use clue tokens to re-roll any of their dice before seeing if they have completed a task. Read the rest of this entry »

Each year, I have run a competition to win a copy of one of the latest games released at Spiel in Essen. As always the competition will be open to anyone so you don’t need to be at Spiel itself.

I am very pleased to announce that this year, I shall be doing the same.  However, I am also very excited to announce that I am running the competition in association with Z-Man Games who will be providing a copy of Dark Minions as the prize (which they are releasing at Spiel).

This competition has now closed.  You can still read my preview of Dark Minions for details on the game.

James.