2008 games in review

Seems like everyone else is doing it, so why can't I?

In 2008, I logged 565 plays of 182 different games.

By keeping track of what games I play when, I can A) remember what I've played and B) let someone else do a ton of number crunching to reveal some interesting trends. I know that it's a dark and slippery path down the road of over analysis and statistics, but it is damn handy to know that I haven't played game X in over a year, or that my plays of game Y indicate that I should check out game Z, and so on and so forth. For me, once I got into the habit of capturing the data I let someone else process it and don't think about to too much, so it's a very lean-back process for me. I got into the habit during the Austin years and have kept with it. Props to Ian of Sky Castle Games for the encouragement.

BGG has a tool that generates your "five and dime list," showing games that you've played at least five or ten times, respectively. Some people have quarters, half-dollars, or even dollars. Let's break down the Mischa Year in Gaming 2008. As always, you can read more about these games at BGG, or buy them at Funagain (use that link and I get a kickback).

Quarters
I only have one for this year: Race for the Galaxy, squeaking in with 26 plays total. What can I say new about Race? It's a fun game with a lot of front-end upload before that first play and no direct player interaction (at least, not until the second expansion). I recently played the first expansion for the first time, which includes a drafting variant that looks beyond my ken right now, but it got me thinking about ways to make Duplicate Race akin to Duplicate Bridge (which may yet be part of the Olympics). The lack of direct interaction turns a lot of people off; but I still dig it. I wouldn't mind playing the two-player advanced version more frequently or giving the solitaire version a whirl to try out the robot player.

Dimes
Quite a few dimes, not too many near misses.

Chase, 20 plays
Still a great abstract, and one of my few tens ("Always want to play and expect this will never change") that I play online at SDG. I don't log online play as a rule, with one or two exceptions, so this is twenty face-to-face games.

Agricola, 17 plays
One of the new hotness games, this is pretty popular with the crew. I suspect I'd play this more if we had the table space more frequently. I do enjoy it, but I feel my interest waning a tad for no particular reason apart from wanting to vary my gaming diet.

Ricochet Robots, 14 plays
This is an old standby that I've played many many times since at least 2001 or so. One day I'll have several old hands at the game at the same time and we can try some of the variants or even the reflecto-walls.

Sheepshead, 14 plays
Strange little midwestern card game; trick-taking, secret and uneven partnerships, plays with five and a regular (albeit abridged) deck of cards. Fun times.

Die Sieben Siegel, 14 plays
Another popular trick-taking game described as Spades plus Evil. I'd like to mix in some new blood with this soon. I know that I will return to this one in the future.

Battle for Hill 218, 13 plays
Even though this made my dime list, I don't play this enough. I also owe the designer a full review, but for now, let's say that this packs a lot of strategy into a little box.

Bridge, 12 plays
Yes, bridge. This is another life game that I don't dedicate time to study. It does scratch an excellent partnership itch that many other games don't touch.

Pandemic, 12 plays
Still losing! I think I generally lose two or three times out of four. I like this game and want to beat it, but I wonder if the decks of cards produce unwinnable states.

Abalone, 11 plays
Abstract strategy that has a few flaws; fixed with varying start positions. This would get played more frequently if I brought it out. I really look forward to having one shelf of two-player abstracts.

No Thanks!, 11 plays
Not much to say here; it's quick and plays five. One of the smallest rule sets I know, with wildly varying behavior based on play style.

Category 5, 10 plays
Another small rule set game. Plays with many, a good filler/intro game. We rarely play more than one round. Maybe I'll suggest we play with the variant to take points.

Jungle Speed, 10 plays
The sport of kings.

Set, 10 plays
I don't play this enough. Again, this is a game with a skill to develop.


Nickels
Dominion, 9 plays
What addictive and popular crack this is. More later.

Blokus, 8 plays
Still a great abstract; one of my go-to games to introduce to new potential gamers. Summed up best as "Attack Tetris."

Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg, 8 plays
We've played this wrong a few times wrt declaration, but it's still a good fun game. I would love to playtest the expansion.

Bamboleo, 7 plays
Fun, but a little lacking in replay value somehow.

Word Blur, 7 plays
You need a nice big table for this one. I like that it's a word game about words.

Bohnanza, 6 plays
Absolutely the best game about bean trading that you will ever play.

Carrousel, 6 plays
Visual puzzle, skill-based, I'm good at it, there you go.

Liar's Dice, 6 plays
I think I'm done with this game, but I do know that there are different ways to play- I usually play the Perudo rules (lose one die), but others play the Bluff rules (lose as many dice as you miss by). I'll compare and contrast at some point.

Manhattan, 6 plays
A dozen plays later, and I worry that there's not a good way to catch up if you get stomped in the first round. Still want to play with the monster.

Oh Hell!, 6 plays
This one has fallen by the wayside in lieu of Die Steven Seagal. I'm also not playing a daily lunchtime game in Austin.

Army of Frogs, 5 plays
Fun abstract strategy that I don't yet own.

Briscola, 5 plays
So far, I exclusively play this two-player.

California, 5 plays
A lighter game about home decorating; I'm not sure how frequently I'll choose to play this.

Coloretto, 5 plays
A standard set-collecting type game, good to introduce to new players and a good design for the colorblind.

Colossal Arena, 5 plays
Did I tell you the story about not playing the correctly for a decade?

Felix: The Cat in the Sack, 5 plays
Bluff and mindreading; if that's up your alley, then play this. Gets better once it clicks.

Ingenious, 5 plays
One of the best games I've received as a gift. Lots of depth here.

Vitrail, 5 plays
Visual puzzle, skill-based, I'm good at it, there you go.

Pillars of the Earth, 5 plays
This hits a sweet spot for me: a bit of randomness, a grabby theme, building something together while competing. I recently played the expansion for the first time in 2009; it adds options and choices and players and length. Overall a good thing.

Ta Yu, 5 plays
My interest in this one is dropping, despite its popularity with the group. I think because there's a fair amount of downtime and partners are forbidden to discuss moves.

Time's Up!, 5 plays
I want more people. Need to have a card party to fill up the blanks.

Uptown, 5 plays
Sort of like reverse Acquire, I usually do badly at this but have a good time trying to plan out my disaster!

Wizard, 5 plays
This one has fallen by the wayside in lieu of Oh Hell.

Zertz, 5 plays
I need all of the Gipf games. I like how this one is about giving your opponent moves to force their move. maybe I will revisit checkers.

For kicks, here's the near misses at four plays per.
Arkham Horror
Dragon Delta
Hey! That's My Fish!
R-Eco
Spinball
Things...
Traditional Card Games (This is a placeholder for games not in the BGG DB- I don't think this is actually four plays of the same card game.)
Twixt
Zendo


Moving on: I can dig a little deeper and pull out a list of new-to-me games in 2008 from the BGG extended stats cruncher. Insert the appropriate disclaimers about how I'm not a statistician, please. I played 87 new-to-me games in 2008; I played about a third of those titles more than once. At least six of these titles I actually have played before, but my data epoch starts at September 2006. A fair number of these are titles I do not own or do not wish to own.

Honestly, I think my game-playing slowed down in 2008. I look forward to having the game room in full swing. Also unpacking games I haven't seen in over a year. Also getting rid of games. My collection recently topped 400, and while a fair number of those are expansions or small games, a too large percentage of that number is either crap I thrifted or games that I've since lost interest in.

I promise not to wait months until my next game post.

I play a new game

Can you believe it? I do occasionally play a new-to-me game. Last night, I played B&L's copy of Pirate King (BGG, BUY ME!), about which I had only heard a very few things.

Short story? Pirate King is quite a bit like Monopoly (actually) where you have a relatively huge degree of control over your motion around the board and can fight the other players with a mini dicefest instead of paying rent. The components are all right, and evidently much improved in the second printing, but still have a hodgepodge unrefined feel. The art is great fun, but the game is ultimately just okay; better for the right crowd or the right mood, but far from awesome.

Long story: You've got your pirate ship sailing around the Caribbean, trying to buy island properties for the docking fees (rent) and make smuggling deliveries for income. Eventually, you fortify all your properties to the point where you have enough victory points to win. Alternatively, you go and kick the Commodore's ass, who has more cannon and crew than you'll ever have, for an instant victory. You have a few other ways to get points and income with Great Treasures (powers) and cards, but that's the game in a nutshell.

Movement is simultaneously clever in its design and aggravating in its execution. You just don't roll and move, mostly. First you drop a marker on a nearby space where you want to go- say, on the Free Parking Buried Treasure spot and not on the heavily built-up Boardwalk Tortuga. Then you roll a d12 and consult a chart to see if you made it- otherwise the wind is better or worse, and you can find yourself up to four places away from your marker and your desired destination. This isn't so bad for the smuggling deliveries, since you can do a drive-by with a bonus if you land on your target exactly. I do wish they would've spent their production budget on a custom die for the single most used mechanic in the game or opted for a d4 and a Fudge die (with its pluses and minuses). Same odds, less handling time for a player.

You land on a spot, you can buy it for the capture price on the chart if you're the first one there. This means a colored flag and a token to show the level for that property. If someone else owns it, you have to pay up the rent Docking Fee based on the location and how many houses and hotels its level of fortification. The way to get victory points is primarily through castles, so it's in your interest to build up as much as possible all the time. There's no penalty to mortgage reduce a place's fortifications if you need cash.

Speaking of money- it's colored glass beads in different denominations and plastic coins for the cheapest denomination kept hidden in a plastic treasure chest. Cute, but potentially a dealbreaker for the colorblind as well as a learning curve to remember how many rubies there are in a diamond.

If you don't want to pay rent, you can opt to fight instead and hopefully take over the settlement. Roll dice per number of cannon; high number kills a crewman. Not enough crew to man your cannon, you don't get 'em. Enough dead crewmen, you lose and have to pay big. You get crewmen and cannon by making deliveries or simply buying them at a friendly port.

The path around the board is a sort of double figure eight, and you can only change facing in a few situations. Scattered on the board are Community Chest Pirate's Booty and Chance Captain's Log spaces, where you pull a card and do what it says. I like the variety of art on the cards, but again, the components are an issue when facing matters and player colors are too similar in bad lighting (brown, black, beige and white). The first printing had small assembled ships and magnetic cannon; the version I played had hard plastic standees and tokens to keep track of cannon. I feel that a little more effort in the production design here would do wonders- a player aid mat with quick info, pawns with more obvious facing, maybe sliders for ship stats.

That's pretty much the game. As I said before, it's okay. It plays a little too long, but it overall has its ups and downs in terms of fun and tension. You definitely have the moments of excitement when you're waiting for someone to land on your high-rent properties, and it's fun to watch two of the other players duke it out; but you're also fiddling with too many bits and squinting at colors while staring off into the distance while you're cash poor with no prospects. I can't give it high marks, but you can feel the love poured into its creation. You probably know already if you want to play this or not, but: If you like pirates in your beer-and-pretzel games, you should think about playing it or a buddy's copy and give it a whirl. If you're no fan of luck in your games, or hoping for something deeper than the theme, then run far far away.

Finally, let me give a big end-of-the-year thanks to everyone who bought games through my FunAgain affiliate link- I'm going to use that accumulated customer credit next month. The Google money is much less, and the Amazon money is drips and drabs. But hey, ten bucks is ten bucks, right?

I hunger

I have absolutely no idea why I didn't have this book on my radar sooner.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, delivers exactly what you'd expect.

"You got your post-apocalyptic survival tale in my zombie horror! No, you got your zombie uprising in my alternate-history war memoir!" I picked this up on a lark at Maple Street Books, and almost missed it. Cat wanted a new crosswords book, and I was just noodling around. On our way out, World War Z leapt off the shelf at me, demanding to be read. I pretty much read the whole book in one sitting, stopping to eat. No, not brains.

This is a strong buy reco, especially if you like zombies, war, alternate history, speculative fiction, or any kind of post-apocalyptic tale- and it's all presented seriously. What would happen if we found ourselves in the middle of a real zombie plague? I found the tale very compelling- as an "oral history," the narrator is collecting tales from people across the world, assembling the whole narrative in chronological order.

Evidently, the (sadly abridged) audio version has a whole host of character actors reading the different parts, adding to the verisimilitude. I might check it out from the library, or obtain it on the 'tubes.

I haven't picked up a book in too long. Partially this is my fault. I mean hey, they have these things called libraries, you know? But when you've got your entire library in boxes in the attic, you don't really have the opportunity to stroll past the shelves and let something catch your eye. I've spent a good amount of time jsut thinking about reading a particular scene in a particular book.

I need to read this one again.

Manhattan: a fine game

Manhattan (BGG, BUY ME!) is due to be back in print in a month or so, and I highly suggest you pick it up.

I got my copy as part of a trade (big surprise), and knew very little about it beyond a few base facts. The game won the Spiel des Jahres in 1994, the first for Andreas Seyfarth of Puerto Rico (BGG, BUY ME!) and Thurn and Taxis (BGG, BUY ME!) fame. I've played both of the latter, and while T&T won the SdJ in 2006, I'm not as captivated by either of those two games as Manhattan, and it gets a fair amount of table time in my circle. This simple game of building skyscrapers is way more vicious than I ever anticipated.

Gameplay is pretty simple and tight: You will make exactly twenty-four moves during the game, placing your buildings with the aid of cards. Each player has a set of buildings, or floors- mostly one story pieces, some twos, some thees, and a few fours. The game board has six different neighborhoods- Wall Street, Soho, Downtown, and so forth, each a three-by-three grid with no special powers for the neighborhoods.

Each player starts with a hand of four cards- the deck consists of repeats of nine different cards, one for each of the nine positions you can place a building. The clever thing is that each is played in relation to how the player perceives the board: Say I have a card that lets me plunk down a building in position 1, if you think of an area like a phone dial pad. That same card, if played by Bob on my right, lets him play on position 3- and so on, with that card letting Fred play on position 9 and Fritz on position 7. It's a great way to maximize play value return on the components, but that's kind of a dry observation- I should have some pictures here. For an added bit of cleverness, you pull aside the pieces you're going to use each round, so you're committing your building power before you know how you can really use it.

You control a building if your color is on top. Points are awarded at the end of each round as follows: 1 point per each building you control on the board, two points for each neighborhood where you control more buildings than anyone else, and three points for the tallest building on the board. If there are ties, no points for anyone.

Now, here's the fundamental rule for taking over buildings: You can only place a piece on a building if doing so would give you at least as many floors as whoever currently owns it. It's relatively easy to get locked out of a tasty position, too. I haven't played a two-player game yet, but I believe it would be very compelling.

I keep bringing Manhattan to game nights, and it keeps getting requested. It's tactical and fun, and just mean enough. Having your moves limited by cards also greatly reduces the whole spectrum of opportunity, so you can focus on strategy by retaining a few cards between rounds. There's also a few variants in there which have yet to hit the table; I'm looking forward to trying the ones with the monster that destroys buildings.

I doubt I'll tire of Manhattan for a long time.