Future Gaming

So the reason I haven't been posting recentlyis here. I have made the initial small outlay of buying an Ipad and now have to finance my way through several thousand apps. Apps which prove to be bigger, brighter and pack more features than can be found on the ipod/phone. Theres been a great Catan port to the ipod touch, which makes the most of the lack of screen real-estate, which has yet to be realized on the Ipad. But there have been releases of an picture perfect ‘Small World’ app, Carcassonne has made it in a slightly different guise under the bizarre title of ‘Might and Card Golden’, as well as many of the classics such as Scrabble, Chess and the like.

Of course the ipad will never replace the games themselves, it just cant compare to the physical presence of the original. But I did try playing Pandemic on a busy train across NZ once and needless to say it didn't really get off the ground. The Ipad offers portability, ever increasing choice and style. I can now fully hope to play a game of Small world or Carcassonne on a plane, I don't even have to decide which ones to take with me! The pad offers some inventive features I haven't seen realized with playing the same versions on your laptop. Scrabble and poker both have support for wireless/bluetooth connections to Iphone/pads so you can play on a central game board with your tiles hidden in your hand. Im looking forward to the day I can hide my resource and development cards in my phone over a game of Cities and Knights.

Despite all these options however the app I’ve used far more than any other has been SmartGo Kifu. Go is like no other board game, entirely abstract, its been described as where chess is like a battle, go is a war. The rules are simple, to surround as much territory as possible but the outcomes from playing on a 19x19 board are near infinite. To become confident at this board game requires training and not only does SmartGo give you a good computer opponent player to play against (easier said than done in a game that relies mostly on abstract pattern recognition and is rooted in philosophies of strength and weakness) but it also gives you tutorials, problems and past games to review and learn from.

Perhaps this is where the true greatness of an amalgamation of board games and computer games lie. Battling the rule book of Agricola was a right of passage for me, but inevitably our first few games were full of mistakes, illegal moves, and slow, slow progress. We all appreciate being taught a new game, why not let that teacher be your Ipad?

Black Market deck for Dominion

This seedy man in a dark alley allows you to potentially purchase any other card in the game which you're not playing with. You make a deck of cards from all the unused kingdom cards (one of each). When you play this, you draw the top 3 blindly and have the opportunity to purchase one. Of course there are only a small number of cards that people want (e.g. the witch), but BM's well worth having as he costs just 3 coins, but gives you 2 coins to spend when he's played.

Tasty little card. Feels nice to have him snuggled in my box!

FotM

Farmer's of the Moor! Agricola's expansion. Because there's not enough going on with Agricola already!

So you start with woodland and pete bogs on your farm. During the harvest phase you need fuel as well as food now. The clever thing is, that you need less fuel if you've upgraded to a clay house, and even less for a stone house.

Not enough fuel? Your people get ill. Then they have to waste a turn going to the infirmary to get better.

My favourite bit to the new expansion: there are special cards which will help you get fuel, food etc. You can choose to pick one of these instead of sending a dude out to do an errand. You still get to send all your dudes out, so they're like extra goes. But the clever bit is you can do it any order, so it add in another stressful decision. Therefore if you don't play wisely, your opponent may get 4 goes to your 2 in the early stages. Wow.

Second favourite bit: Horses! Why? Cos they're not wooden blocks, but actual wooden horses. Yay! or should that be Naaaay!

What else? Loads of new minor improvements. One of them gives you 2 extra bits of farm space. And new major improvements. My favourite minor imporvement so far is the Bog Body. A well preserved dead body in your peat bog whcih you can donate to the museum (a major imporvement). I think this expansion will be much better with 4 or 5 players, as then the opportunity to really utilise the new major improvements will be realised.

Final word: the photo in this article is a FotM horse visiting the infirmary. Das Pferd besucht der Krankenhaus! Uber toll!

Citadels

While we're on a theme of card games where you can choose roles, I need to tell you about Citadels. I played this at the March 2010 gaming weekend.

I loved this game. The idea is, is to build a city. When someone has 8 "buildings" (i.e. 8 cards), the game ends. Each building is worth different victory points, and there are some bonus points avialble too.

The great thing about this game is that at the beginning of each round, everyone chooses a character (or 2 characters in a 2 player game), and they all play in a set order. The characters are chosen in secret. The first character to play is the assassin. He names another character; if someone has chosen that character, then they are out for this round! Sometimes the assassin chooses a character that no has picked. Then it's the thief's turn and so on. There are 8 character cards to choose; and the game can be played with up to 7 players (which I think is really fantastic).

So the best bit of the game is over. The rest of the mechanic is fairly simple and designed to allow accumulation of points. You can choose to either aquire new buildings in your hand or get some coins (lovely gold coins that come with the game). Then you can pay for a building in your hand. There are different coloured buildings that have significance and some have extra joy to be had from them too.

A very quick game. One I really enjoyed playing in the pub.

I'm beginning to develop a love affair with card games, because they can be so simple, versatile and compelling. Excepting the artwork they just lack that physical asthetic which is often important in a game.

I'm looking forward to playing Race to the Galaxy. I've heard good thigns about it and have always fancied trying it.

Another game i've heard of which is supposed to be simialr to Citadels is A Fist Full of Dragon Stones (or something with a similar title). That's supposed to have a good bidding system (instead of simply choosing) whereby any money you bid, you lose, regardless of if you win the bid or not (I could be getting that mixed up with another game though!!).

Race for the Galaxy

I'm pretty excited about this game. I've only played it twice and I can see it's going to be a favorite.

When I initially read the rules I was disappointed: I thought "this is Puerto Rico and San Juan". It described a game played over multiple rounds where you each choose whether to "Explore, Develop, Settle, Trade, Consume or Produce", sound familiar? It did to me.

One initial difference was obvious: It's not a board-game (no board!). Just a set of cards and a few (unimpressive) VP chips, hardly worthy of a box. One neat thing about this set of cards though is that you shuffle (almost) all of them together and then just play. The cards themselves have some nice artwork and funky titles "Terraforming Robot" and when you play the game you lay them in front of you to form your corner of the universe, thereby producing an end product which has more of a board-game feel to it than, say, Dominion.

Another difference is that you can all take on the same roll and gain it's bonus, but only actions chosen by players take place in that round, so if everyone chooses to Explore then you all do it and progress straight to the next round.

So, it doesn't "Feel" like Rico or San Juan but it's strengths are similar: "Should I produce now when it will help others more than me?" "Should I save this card until I can afford to play it or should I discard it to pay for another card?" (cards are used as currency, as in San Juan) "Do I place a final card to end the game or try and get more VPs first?".

A nice level of strategy. Not quite as "pure" as Rico since you're reliant on a shuffled deck of cards which, to a certain extent, influence the choices you make. But a good deal more strategy than San Juan or Dominion.

An excellent game, and easy to travel with - maybe for a ski trip?!

Lost Cities - Pub Rules

So I came across a board game shop while in London and bought this game on Slowball's recommendation. My firend and I went straight to the pub to play it. But oh no! You need pen and paper to keep track of the score as the rounds progress.

Pub Rules: just one round. Makes adding up in your head easier.

And btw: is Lost Cities more stressful than trying to feed your family in Agricola? Argh, when you invest and then don't draw the cards... and then if you leave it to late to even do a bit of damage limitation... arrrgh.