Playtesting home-brewed games, buying new ones

I had a grand ol' time during Friday's playtest. We played four unpublished games and I picked up four new ones.

First, we tried an unnamed pre-alpha adaptation of Civilization. I don't know if the guy wanted to adapt Sid Meier's or Avalon Hill's version, but I presume the latter. The was extremely early in the design process, almost to the point of unplayability, though I saw some interesting possibilities in the card transformations he used. I'll leave the idea to percolate.

Next, we played "Productivity," a game of corporate project management. I had fun playing a complete game, as well as giving feedback- I think we made generally worthwhile suggestions overall, though I know well the feeling of "get the hell off my game" when you have too many cooks on a game. Regardless, I look forward to seeing the next revision of the game. Things to remember for a playtest: have multiple copies of your rules.

Next, we played a game of my own design- "Caffeine Dealer," a working title. It's an epic masterpiece of mind-boggling complexity, brain-tickling simplicity, and raw fun that will shake the heavens and bring the gaming world to its knees. Ahem. In all seriousness, some of you may recall this game of coffeeshop mayhem that grew out of the Dvorak concept. I took a page of advice from Monkey Man Dan, and stripped the game down to its base rules and concept. I think I definitely have a good working beta at this point, though I still need to tweak the scoring to streamline it. Anybody have an in with a major coffeeshop? I'd like to license the final design.

Finally, we played Dan's untitled post-apocalypse salvage game, pictured above. For the record, the players in the photo are (clockwise): Me, Dan, David, and Danny. Taking his own advice, Dan stripped the game down to the core game mechanic, partially to prove that the mechanic works, but also to clear out bloat and cruft. I think he took it too far, but I understand the design process. Oddly, it somehow reminded me of Cosmic Encounter, though likely only because of the level of abstraction and the potential for expansion.

I picked up four new games: 221 B Baker Street and a case expansion, Blood Feud in New York, the Hollywood! Card Game, and Let's Kill.

221B Baker Street is one of the classics that I've never played. Originally released in 1975, players take on the role of Sherlock Holmes, matching wits against each other in an effort to solve crimes. Unlike Clue, where "mysteries" consist of random who-where-what, 221B comes with twenty different written-for-the-game-by-mystery-writers cases, as well as selling additional cases separately. Cat played this game as a kid with her parents, so I picked it up primarily on her recommendation.

Blood Feud in New York looks like a Mafia-themed Axis and Allies. That is to say that it looks like a simple wargame with units a la Risk, but different units have different abilities. In Blood Feud, you've got hitmen and helicopters, thugs and limos, henchmen and speedboats. The color alone in this game makes the purchase worthwhile, plus the ideas gleaned for my own secret nefarious projects, not to mention scratching my Mob itch perpetuated by the Sopranos and Tony D's Complete Mafia for d20. I'll post a more complete review once I get a chance to play it.

Buy Blood Feud from Funagain!

I picked up Hollywood! on a lark. Basically, the game store employee had a new shipment open for pricing, and I picked up a new game for seven bucks. Hey, can you blame me? This actually looks very promising- one of those simple games that suggest the possibility for deep strategy. On the one hand, I had hoped for something a little lighter and sillier (like Pimp: The Backhanding), but it looks like the game's theme functions primarily as window dressing, and the real game of returns on an investment fits right in there with Titan/Colossal Arena, Modern Art, and Lost Cities. Interestingly, while looking up the links for those three games, I noticed that Reiner Knizia designed all three. So I realize that I've given Hollywood! some severe praise there, and I have to state the disclaimer that I've not yet played this game. Such is the curse for purchasing a game that requires three players.

Buy Hollywood! from Funagain!

Let's Kill, on the other hand, completely falls into the category of light beer-and-pretzels games. It's a card game about serial killing with creepy stick figure art. This one probably works better with more than two players, but Cat and I still had fun. Contrasting this with the previous game, this proves that theme and window dressing can carry a game far.