Spiel

Top notch work Adam! Looks like an awesome place to be, reckon it would be good if we could get a few people together for next year's event. Great video too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ky1mg9fwM

Dominion

And there were loads of people playing Domion. There was a new expansion pack being sold.

We stood proudly by the posters.

Essen Report

Wow.
Can't wait to go back again.
So much to do and see. And Dan, there was a German Celtic Death Metal Music store. Kind of Middle Earth Rock. There were a lot of Phantasy geeks there, so you could buy plastic armour and weapons and even hacked off limbs.

Sam, check these photos out...




























Contents

PURCHASES
1. Bausack
2. Trias
3. Mord Im Arosa
4. Geistesblitz
5. Agricola Fairy Deck
6. Russia/Japan board for Power Grid

PLAYED
1. Wings of War
2. A La Carte
3. Tikal II
4. The Magic Labyrinth
5. Findevier
6. Mr Jack (pocket)
7. Glen More
8. King Up
9. FunFair
10. Pirate vs. Pirate
11. Zooloretto
12. Zooloretto Mini

DISCUSSED WITH AUTHOR (or representitive)
1. The Great Fire of London 1666
2. Escape from the Aliens
3. The Resistance

GAMES A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE PLAYING/BUYING THAT LOOKED INTERESTING
1. 7 Wonders
2. Die Tore der Welt
3. Die Verbotene Insel
4. Linie 1
5. Tobago
6. Jack's Gold
7. Dixit
8. Black Friday
9. Loch Ness
10. Safranito

GAMES THAT SOLD OUT BEFORE WE COULD CHECK THEM OUT
1. The King Commands
2. Hellas: Peloponnes



PURCHASES
4. GEISTESBLITZ
Possibly the best games I've ever played...? And just 9 euros.
This is for 2-8 players. It's so much fun. Most importantly it would make a most amazing drinking game. Perfect for gaming weekends. It's quite tricky to describe without the bits, but there are 5 wooden objects in the middle. You have to draw a card and you have to grab the correct object first. However there are +vee and -ve cards. +ve cards require you grab the depicted picture (but it has been designed so this is not as easy as it sounds). -ve cards show 2 of the 5 objects in the wrong colour (the colours corresponding to the other object) leaving only one object that is not depicted (i.e. the one to grab). It's a total head-fudge. And then it gets really good, when you can introduce new rules in later rounds. There's also punishments for making a mistake (which could also incorportae a shot of Jaeger or something!). I think it's better than how I've described it!

PLAYED
1. WINGS OF WAR
This will probably be my next major purchase. I would have bought it but it was too big for my suitcase. Essentially you are areoplanes dogfighting (there are lots of missions when you get board of that). You all select your go at the same time and reveal at the same time, so there's a good amount of skill. To move the planes, you have a deck of card with movements on them which you pre-select. Then when everyone reveals, you put the card under your plane and follow the arrow on it. When everyone's done that, there's a special ruler to determine if anyone is in range of your guns. The only downside is that damage is determined by drawing tokens out of a bag at random. So I was shot down in seconds! We played the WW2 verson, but there's a WW1 version with slightly different rules whcih I prefered the look of. Also the good thing is that the manoeuvure and fire power of the planes is different to try and reflect historical accuracy.

3. TIKAL II
It's a bit like being Indiana Jones, but really really boring. I won't be buying this and so can't be arsed to explain it. Look it up on BGG if you're interested!

6. MR JACK (POCKET)
So there was a Mr Jack game and then the Pocket version. They're both only 2 player, so we played the pocket version thinking it could potentially be a good game for holidays, etc. I really liked it, but we didn't buy it as we questioned its longevity and it was expensive at 15euros (and it was just a few cards/tiles).

It's a clever mechanic. One of you plays Holmes, Watson and his dog, the other plays Jack the Ripper. If you are Mr Jack, you (conveniently) disguise yourself as one of 9 people. The detective then has to try and work out which person you're disguised as. If they do they win. Mr Jack has to try and prevent this by wasting the detective's time. If they manage this, Mr Jack wins.

The game has 9 tiles each with a different suspect on and some street. Watson, Holmes and the dog a smaller tokens which move around the outside of this 9 tiles. Each tile has a bit of wall on it. So all the tiles and tokens can be moved based on some available actions. The idea of Mr Jack is to make it so the detective can only see wall, and not people. The detective wants to be able to look down the streets and see people. One nice thing about this game is that on a turn, each player has 2 actions. On turns 1, 3, 5, etc, the detective does an action, then Mr Jack does 2 actions, then the dective a last action. It's the otherway around for turns 2, 4, 6 etc. It's a quick game too. Took about 15mins. And the box it came in was very small (pocket sized - almost!).




Here's a Picture of Klaus Teuber signing stuff. What a gent!



















And here's a picture of a stall selling little game pieces.




Anyways, there's clearly a lot to write about. Therefore I thought if there's anything from the list you want to know more about, then please suggest it on the comments feed. Most popular one(s) gets a bit of a write up.

You can see my youtube video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ky1mg9fwM

It's just the video clips I took stuck together, but hopefully it'll give you an idea of the event. I was going to do a proper video blog, but that fell by the way-side. If you want me to video blog any of the games we bought (a la Tom Vassel), then just say!

Finally, we ate here on our last night:

Gaming Weekend - Ryton - 8th to10th October 2010

A brief outline of the weekend with some videos.

Friday night, we gamed from 8pm to 5.30am.

Saturday, we went to the pub and played Perudo and Citadels from about noon til about 6pm. At the pub I discovered 3 delicious ales: Caledonian Autumn Red and 2 from Beartown brewery (Ginger Bear and Peach Melbear).

Saturday night was pizza and poker night. And we played perudo and citdals. And probably something else.

Sunday I went home. Monday I felt ill. Probably because from 8pm Friday to about 2am Sunday morning, there was only about a 6 hour period when we weren't drinking beer.

ah, bliss....

The Videos
1. A short clip of Powergrid (just because it's a beautiful game).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=61SZE4MnN9w

2. The Agricola epic
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImHu0Ll_71U

3. Poker side game
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvYn03LT2J4

Bioterroirsm rules ok

So, I have seen the bioterrorist attempt to sabotage the well-meaning efforts of others in their attempt to curb the pandemic.

Bioterrorist: you must attempt to spread a fifth disease and sabotage research stations. Your moves are secret. And frequent. Be careful not to be caught, and be ultra careful not to allow your uber-disease to be erradicated. If so, you will have to put the kettle on.

Enjoy!

Bandu

Here is something original indeed. And 80's. And sadly out of print. My life quest is to find a second-hand copy.

It's an American game (apparently). You have to build a tower, and of course make it as structurally sound as possible. When your tower falls, your out. So the winner is the person whose tower has yet to topple. You have to build your tower on a block of wood about the same size as a Jenga piece. THe pieces with which to build the tower are odd shapes that ma be slanted or curved. Many of them are based on real-life objects, such as a cotton reel, egg, egg cup, small bowling pin, etc.

Here's where it gets good: everyone starts with 5 beans. On your turn you have 2 options. You pick a piece which you can either "bid to accept" or "bid to reject". If you "bid to accept" the person your left decides if they want it. If so, they bid 1 bean. then it goes round the circle while people either increase their bid or don' want to get involved in bidding. Remember you only have 5 beans for the entire game. If no one bids any beens, you get it for free!

If you decide instead to pick a piece and "bid to reject", the person to your left has 2 choices: either accept the piece and place it on/into their tower or pay one bean to reject it. If they pay the 1 bean, it goes to the next person who has the same options. If it comes all the way back round to you, the cost to reject goes up to 2 beans and so it continues.

Got it? Hope that's clear. My oh my, was there tension, laughter, sqwuarking and at times utter dispair. We had more people than could play (max players is 6), so 2 people just watched. And they had a great time too!

The oddly shaped pieces often fit surprisingly well together, but it is no way an easy game. The numerous pieces and the different ways they can be placed ensures longevity. I doubt 2 identicle towers have ever been built. Sometimes, people were overcome with the aesthetics of a tower.

I beg of you all to seek this game out and buy it. It's not available in UK on ebay. It is in USA, but P+P to UK is extortionate. Is it available in NZ or Australia.

Apparently there is a very similar game called Bausack. Bausack is also unavailable in the UK. Happy searching potential fellow Bandu-lovers!

Slowballs, do you own intrigue?