The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Paul’s place
Present: Pat, Richard, Brian, Alex, Paul.
Played: Yeti Slalom, The Wiggles Mix ‘n Match, Match of the Penguins, Humm Bug, Aladdin’s Dragons, Robo Rally, Canyon.

Blog title this week refers to: a) We had a small group of a mere five players, and b) we played some very unusual games tonight. At one point I was reminded of Jude Law’s line in Operation Good Guys - “I feel like I’m in a Fellini film…”

Yeti Slalom: This one hasn’t hit the table for some years. Slide your snowboarder cards down the mountain and peg snowballs at your opponents using Yetis. High skill and strategy on the snow slopes, that probably won’t be seen again (at least, not for some years more).
10 mins rules & setup; 18 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 14. Paul (green): 12. Alex (yellow), Brian (red): 11. Richard (purple): 9.

Wiggles Mix ‘n Match: I can barely believe I’m recording this, let alone that we played it.
13 mins. Pat wins.
Sigh.

Match of the Penguins: A sophisticated take on Snap, involving beach umbrellas and blankets, sunglasses, lais, Hawaiian shirts, fish and of course, penguins.
15 mins.
Richard: 23. Pat: 16. Brian: 8. Alex: 7. Paul: 6.

Humm Bug: 33 mins. At Alex’s request we played the la-la-la variant.
Paul wins (with Tulips in Amsterdam, ‘la’d’ by Alex). Pat, Richard one space behind and Alex another one space. Brian stuck on the second space of the board.
At this point I couldn’t back any more and asked if we could play ‘a real game’.

Aladdin’s Dragons: Wouldn’t have been my first choice, but close enough. I got an ok start in this with reasonable gem gains for ‘cheap’, but then got out-finessed in the last two turns in particular by spells and artefacts of the other players.
10 mins rules and setup; 68 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 7. Richard (grey): 6. Brian (green), Alex (yellow): 5 with tie-break tiles. Paul (red): 5 (with no bonuses).

Robo Rally: Again not my first choice, but not because I don’t like the game (I do) - I just suck at it…
5 mins rules & setup; 35 mins game time.
Richard: 3 flags. Alex: 1 flag but closest to his 2nd. Pat: 1 and next closest. Paul: 1 and yet another space away. Brian: Yet to reach his first.

Canyon: Nice to finish off the night with this old favourite. Alex stormed through this, although towards the end I thought I could have pipped him. It wasn’t to be, this time, but still an enjoyable game.
2 mins rules and setup; 38 mins game time.
Alex 1st across the line, Paul a mere one space behind. A bit further back to Richard, then Brian, then Pat who was able to get a line of sight to the finish line (I think).

Venue: Paul’s place
Present: Pat, Neil F., Richard, Brian, Mark, Alex, Paula, Paul.
Played: Hula Hippos, Fairy Tale, Masters of Venice, After the Flood, Richard’s Prototype, Downfall of Pompeii, Qwirkle, Colosseum.

Hula Hippos: This one is in the running for the Best Children’s Game award from Boardgames Australia. Flick your little wooden hippos Crokinole-style across the table so that they land under a spinning Hula Hoop. Pointless, and yet, strangely compelling.
For the record, Pat won.

Fairy Tale: The commonest filler/opener played here gets its usual run.
Results: Alex: 48. Pat: 45. Neil: 38.

Masters of Venice: Gondoliers
New economic Euro plaything, set in Renaissance Italy. Buy and sell various commodities, buy and sell shares in the shops selling these commodities, and fulfill various Guild orders. The latter element appears to be where many of the vps are, and is reminiscent of Traders of Genoa (I assume Masters was directly inspired by Genoa on this feature). The bidding for turn order and more importantly, specialist roles, adds another interest dimension.
There was certainly much buying and selling of commodities, which Mark successfully manipulated and eventually won from. There was also a reasonable volume of guild deliveries, which caused significant angst, especially once we all appreciated that unfilled orders cost -2 points each at game end. But in our game there was very little buying and selling of shares - I wonder therefore whether this was a game feature that we failed to properly explore and exploit, or if this is usual in plays of MoV?
In post-game follow-up Pat discovered that we played the Docks wrong (we didn’t do ‘all-play’), and while this would have affected actual scores, I doubt this would have affected the final outcome of Mark’s runaway win.
I think we all found the continuous pegging and unpegging of commodity prices and orders a real chore, and Pat has committed to re-doing this as a simple table with cubes to just slide up down. Less cumbersome perhaps, but more prone to table bumping too.
I’m still undecided as to whether I really like this game or not. There may be more subtle plays to discover and strategies to run. For a first playing I certainly felt in control for the first turn or two, but this sense of control dissipated somewhat by game end. Having your sense of planning and control taken away in a game is tolerable, if the game also allows a change of tactics to capitalise on ‘gaps’ left by your opponents. I’m not yet saying that MoV doesn’t provide this, but I didn’t see that in our first game. I would like to try this again to see.
40 mins rules and setup; 125 mins game time.
Results: Mark (black): 18. Alex (red): 12. Paul (green) 11. Pat (blue): 10.

After the Flood: Somebody save me, the water’s rising, sweet Jesus take the blame…
Ran in parallel with Masters of Venice.
35 mins rules and setup (I think); 130 mins game time. Good timing for this to finish at the same time as MoV!
Results: Neil (green): 121. Richard (purple): 107. Brian (red): 91.

“Richard’s prototype” v5.2: Details kept in confidence while this is still a prototype, but I’m really looking forward to the next iteration – nice theme, nice mechanics – this has the potential to be a hit!
10 mins rules and setup; 55 mins game time.
Results: Mark: 26. Richard: 24. Alex, Paul: 11. Brian: 10.

Downfall of Pompeii: Played in parallel with the prototype. 25 mins.
Results: Neil: 11. Pat: 9. Paula: 9. (Pat eeks out 2nd place on tie-break).

Qwirkle: Abstract pattern diversions for our Pompeiians.
34 mins.
Results: Pat: 161. Neil: 144. Paula: 109.

Colosseum: Final game for die-hards, taking us past 2am on a holiday night (I was gonna pay the next day – our 4-year-old’s in-built alarm clock doesn’t automatically switch to snooze mode for public holiday mornings).
This game is still fun and interesting (to me, at least) with 3 players, but much more so with 4 or maybe 5, which I’ll insist on whenever this gets to be played next.
Obviously a well-balanced outcome given the closeness in the scores.
Pat admitted he ‘king-made’, but not intentionally so and only worked it out after he had finished his last turn. I’ll have to give him the benefit of the doubt !
19 mins setup and rules refresh; 82 mins game time.
Results: Alex (orange): 81. Paul (green): 79 (+$28). Pat (blue): 79 (+$14).
(I was quite pleased with my Colosseum close-up, and tried a bit of image experimentation. The result: A ‘genuine’ pic of a Colosseum game played in 100 years ago, in 1909…)

The fourth annual ConTrail has come and gone, as big and as bold as ever. Twelve gamers, including five (Brian, Richard, Alex, Jeff and Brad) who actually rolled in on Friday night, made this the longest-running ConTrail in history. I like to see a new record set every year…

Many of the pictures included here are from others, namely Euhan. You can tell these by the little tool-tips you get when you ‘mouse-over’ - all pics that aren’t mine have an acknowledgement as to their owner.

The weather prevented games out on the balcony this time. We did get in a Power Grid session under cover out there, but lost one $electro to the wind before the game was through.
As always the surroundings are a great place to be, but the wallabies and roos still don’t let you get within 50 or 60 metres before hopping away. From the balcony we had decent views through autumnal ash trees that included the fog-covered escarpment on the other side of the river.
On Saturday night the air was clear of clouds, providing a vista of the milky part of the Milky Way - something you don’t get even in the outer suburbs of Sydney.

Once again Brian provided outstanding catering, foregoing a spot on Masterchef Australia to ensure a place at the games table instead. I’m tempted to record information about the games we played with the barbecue (ie., trying to get it lit), but that’s an experience I’d sooner forget even more readily than my performance in some of the other games I played.
The number of played games recorded for the 2-and-a-bit days is an enormous 41, although I participated in only 6 of those. I focused on the opportunity to play the rarely-played and epic-scale games. That’s great, because I’ve now got them out of my system for another good 12 months!
(Pat: I got in on 21 of the alleged [41] games, so was happy with my contribution to the team effort.)

Games for Friday night:
Dune: Jeff won on turn 3 as the Harkonnen, with Alex, Richard, Brad and Brian along for the ride.
Dune Express: Apparently a print-and-play that wasn’t worth the the trouble and our players gave up in disgust. Alex’s comment was simply “Do not play this…”.
Cutthroat Caverns: Brian: 15. Alex: 14. Brad: 11. Richard: 3. Jeff: 0 (died).
Midgard: Alex: 76. Jeff: 72. Richard: 70. Brian: 61. Brad: 57. (Has anyone else ever been tempted out of a sense of irreverence to pronounce this as “Mijjard”…?)
Cartagena: Brian: 1st. Brad, Jeff, Richard and Alex along for the ride.

The Saturday crowd gradually rolled in, giving way to a big day of games, including:
Vinci: Brian: 100. Jeff: 97. Richard: 95. Brad (who apparently let Brian win!): 92. Alex: 84.
Fairy Tale: Pat: 50. Alex: 39. Jeff: 32. Brian: 24.
San Juan: Richard: 50. Rick D: 38. Pat: 32. Brad: 16.

Power Grid (This is the one in which the $electro blew under the balcony floorboards!): 10 mins rules refresh and setup; 123 mins game time. A close game…
Results: Craig: 15 + $85. Jeff: 15 + $56. Paul: 15 + $3. Alex: 13 + $$. Brian: 10 + $$.

Web of Power: 30 mins game time. Rick D: 69. Richard V: 62. Brad: 60.
Wizard: Jeff: 290. Brad: 280. Pat: 190. Richard V: 150. Rick D: 140.
Circus Flohcati: Brad: 45. Pat: 44. Richard: 39. Jeff: 30. Rick: 25.
Dominion: Pat: 32. Jeff G: 23. Craig: 21. Rick D: 19.
Where’s Bob’s Hat?: Pat: 138. Rick: 52. Craig: 19. Jeff G: 5.
Turn the Tide: Pat: 4. Jeff: 2. Alex: 0.

After the Flood: Alex: 129. Jeff: 101. Pat: 85. Here are some comments provided by Pat:
A solid and interesting game, although I feel it gets a too samey in the last hour - exaggerating, but you’re playing the same game 5 times with some variance between start positions depending on what resources you retain from the previous turn. I’m not a fan of the need to delay actions to meet the seemingly powerful need to go last into the resources boxes, which are crucial for the following turn. I like how the aggressor is rewarded with the armies, but this again seems to favour the late-player (especially when coupled with the resources to buy extra units).
The game makes me wonder about different strategies, but I’m not sure I want to play it again too quickly, given I feel I’ve played it 5 times in one play already.

Conquest of the Empire: Paul, Richard, Neil M., Brad, Jeff G. Rules and setup for about 1 hour. We played the first of four campaign seasons before taking a dinner break.

We followed through with the standard ConTrail ritual of dinner at the local club, which was even able to accommodate our vegetarians. I managed to get this shot of all ConTrail participants (minus your photographer). Some have their eyes on the TV watching the Cronulla Sharks getting smacked by St. George-Illawarra, in what potentially could have been the former’s last appearance in the NRL despite it being still only mid-season.

Back to the games, and Conquest of the Empire eventually came to a close after a total of 242 mins game time (ie., 4 hours), leaving me annoyed with myself for mis-reading the game turn indicator and denying myself a bunch of extra points that I planned for. In truth it probably would not have given me the game, but it would have made it closer. Congratulations to Richard for holding that one.
Final results: Richard (red): 170. Paul (purple): 155. Jeff G. (green): 150. Neil M (yellow): 120. Brad (black): 115.

I then got to play the next iteration of my prototype - great to get two successive weeks of human playtesting to get the design moving in the right direction. The feedback from Brian, Richard and Brad was excellent and will help shape rules set #53…

Games played by others included:
Stone Age: According to Neil (thanks!), Alex won on 220-ish. Neil M. second on 199. Euhan 3rd on 180-ish. Also according to Neil, “…Euhan employed an interesting “let my people starve and eat wood and gold strategy” which didn’t quite pay off.”
Brass: Euhan: 121. Craig: 104 (and ahead on the tiebreak). Rick D: 104. Brian: 98.
Agricola: Craig: 37. Euhan: 34. Brian: 31. Rick: 26.
Who’s the Ass?: Rick 1st on 38, followed by Brian: 65; Euhan: 88; Al: 90; Pat: 103; and Craig: 133.

Vikings was played by Neil M., Craig, Euhan and Rick D., according to Neil M., although there is apparently some doubt, since Neil is getting old and his memory is starting to fail.
However, he does confidently remember the scores as being 58, 49, 39, 29, in the respective order of the names shown.
Then there was Rugby Mania: Pat: 19 defeated Alex: 12.

We ended the night at about 3:20am after 89 minutes of Tichu, originally planning for a 1000 point game, but settling for 500 points after 9 rounds on accepting Alex’s observation that we had gone well-past “stupid-o’clock”. Let the record show, however, that Alex and I were the first to cross the 500 point mark at round 7.
Final scores: Pat+Brad: 670. Paul+Alex: 330.

Sunday gradually got underway with Brian’s poached eggs on English muffins with cheese, ham and Bearnaise sauce wake-up breakfast, but it was the coffee that really got the brain working.
The first game on Sunday for me was Talisman, which I ventured into only because Alex had overlaid his own rules for combat encounters and various other features, to reduce some randomness and add some meaningful decision-making.
This definitely improved the game that I remember last playing probably 10-15 years ago. However, in the game end-stage unlikely dice rolls twice swept me out of the inner path and therefore out of any chance of a reasonable finish, reminding me that this was still Talisman (until Alex fixes that ridiculous rule too)!
The game was eventually won by Euhan after 130 mins (+ 15 mins rules & setup), just scraping out Alex and Brad.

Other Sunday results include:
Goa: Pat: 46. Jeff F: 36. Rick D: 31. Jeff G: 28.
Klunker: Neil M: 16. Richard V: 15. Craig: 14. Brian: 13.
Carcassonne: Craig: 45. Rick: 39. Neil M: 38. Jeff G: 36. Jeff F: 33.

Bison: The politically-correct would crucify us over this one. Using the feathers and headbands from Pow Wow may have added to the theme I suppose, but I mean, really…?
Results: Neil: 24. Craig: 21. Brian: 20. Richard: 17.

Princes of Florence: Jeff G: 61. Jeff F., Rick: 49. Craig: 47. Neil M: 45.
Die Sieben Siegel (lower is better): Richard: 5. Jeff: 20. Pat: 20.

Other games for which Pat has provided some results (in blue), are as follows:
Set: There’s never a winner, just losers.
Pandemic: Just losers, but heroic level losers.
Shazamm!: Too many winners and losers to name.
Cosmic Encounter: Randomness was the winner.
Airships: Dicing was the winner.
Notre Dame: No one hit 70, so mediocracy was the winner.
Race for the Galaxy: Jeff’s Federated States bonus card was the winner.
I’m glad we cleared that up.
Although in post-script, Neil M. adds that this was probably the same players as for Vikings (above), with Neil M. winning with the Galactic Federation “and a slew of technology cards…”

But, there was also a game of Ticket to Ride Switzerland in there too, somewhere. Played by Rick D., Neil M., and Jeff G. Final places were Rick first, Neil second, Jeff 3rd.

After lunch (see barbecue games above) I got to play a much anticipated session of Struggle of Empires. I’ve always been fascinated with this game, including Martin Wallace’s innovative alliance mechanism (which also appears in Conquest of the Empire).
However, controlling this and the flow of the game is excruciatingly difficult, and it has now beaten me enough times to lose its lustre with me. All power though to Alex, who crept across Europe while successfully strengthening his position in the German States, and finessing away unrest through government reforms.
On the other hand, my French could not avoid the unrelenting build-up of populace disquiet, and slid into revolution on the very last game round, which put them (me!) out of contention!
50 mins rules and setup; 180 mins game time.
Final results: Alex (United Provinces; orange): 68. Brad (Prussia; grey): 64. Brian (Russia; green): 60. Paul (France; blue): Revolution!! 0!


Thanks again to all for being a part of ConTrail 2009. Onwards now, to 2010..!

Congratulations Richard and Boardgames Australia for the successful running of the first ever formal and open Sydney Protospiel event. Also written about both before and after the event here on BGG.
A bit over a dozen game designers and I believe 11 original designs rolled out, the format was 3-4 tables and 3 sessions running about 2 hrs each play session.
All participants, including me, signed a non-disclosure agreement, so I won’t reveal details of people’s games, or even working title names here. I’ll only describe in very general terms some of things I saw.
The quality of the prototypes was variable as one would expect, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how good some of these were. I didn’t get a good look at everything, but Phil R. and Jesse’s WWI scenario wargame was a particular standout - it actually looked like a professionally published title. I understand they have a third collaborator who actually does game artwork - obviously a great boost to the look-and-feel of the game. This was a little reminiscent of Peter Hawes’ prototype that I saw at the Australian Games Expo earlier this year - his follow-up to Heads of State that actually looked like a finished and published product. Being Brisbane-based, neither Peter nor his new game were in attendance today, unfortunately.
Another game I would have like to have tried but didn’t get to was the new one from Phil Harding, of Cannonball Colony and Archaeology fame. Z-Man took up Archaeology TCG last year and it was finally released in March. Phil had a copy to show, complete with the Z-Man logo and still in shrink-wrap. A great result.

The last game I played was from Lawrence, who had hand-carved the core components of his game from balsa wood to really enrich the theme. I think his design was the most successful of all those I saw in embodying a specific theme within a playable game. The challenge will be in capturing that richness in the components in a mass-produced way, and we talked about various compromises that might be possible to make it work. In the meantime, Lawrence’s prototype remains an outstanding work of art in its own right.

The first game I played was a very nice hidden info/memory game from David, incorporating arbitrary visual cues that the players themselves deploy on to the game board. While not as rich as Lawrence’s game, David’s also included a fitting and very elegant theme. With only a little tweaking in the turn action mechanics, I could see a published version of this title very comfortably sitting alongside high-quality peers on the shelves of game shops. David’s feedback on the day was posted to the BGG thread mentioned above, here.

I was happy with the playtest session for my own creation, although more specifically I was happy with the feedback I received from the three ‘victims’ who hadn’t played any previous version of the rules. I had introduced a new feature recently that worked fine in simulated playing (ie., on a spreadsheet), but frankly failed to impress human players! This is an excellent outcome, because it means I must either rethink or eliminate outright that feature to improve the game experience. This barely needs stating, since that was one of the prime reasons for attending the protospiel (another is the networking with like-minded individuals and exchange of ideas, etc.). But it is reinforcement that at least two forms of playtesting can be greatly valuable. One is the simulations and walk-throughs, to try to flush out the major bugs before you inflict it on anyone else at all. The other is the playtesting with real people, preferably people who haven’t played it before and have no vested interest in your feelings so as not to be perfectly honest with you.

Richard asked for feedback on the whole event, so here are some quick thoughts.
First of all, if the next session followed the exact same routine as this one, I’d be just as eager a participant. The only small negative was the nature of the venue – the room was kind of pokey and cluttered. No-one was expecting the Savoy ballroom of course, but it was occasionally a little awkward moving between tables, chairs and gamers. But on the up-side, the venue was free and food and drink (including beer) was available right there. As I said earlier, with everything exactly the same, I’d be there.
Certainly also I’d like to see more designers and designs in attendance, but that is a variable not so easy to control. And the management of such a forum would become progressively more unwieldy the more people became involved, so that means a bit of a balancing act would be needed.
Other thoughts – more a wishlist than a set of expectations - is to perhaps have special guests doing short talks, similar maybe to the designers session they ran last year at the 2008 Games Expo in Albury. That of course would mean, a) less time for games, and b) yet more organisation and coordination. Also, judging and prizes for a “designer’s choice award” or similar. Although to make that work would require that everyone got a taste of everyone else’s game design and the format would have to be radically different. It might risk the whole day being a flop if no-one was satisfied that their game could get a decent airing with only 30-40 minutes spent on each game in the allotted time. Although I can imagine a way to do this myself, it may be just too much of a stretch to expect this from many designer folks.
Yet another thought is to have an established game publisher, maybe doubling as a guest speaker, to be an on-the-spot judge for the one design of the day determined to be the most likely commercial success. At the end of the day they award the prize and provide an explanation of why they were chosen, perhaps flushing up issues of cost of production versus likely shelf price range, target markets, etc.

Anyway, the forum is replete with possibilities and I look forward to the next game design session soon.

Apr 26, 2009: Something here
Venue: Paul’s place
Present: Alex, Jeff, Pat, Brian, Mark, Paul.
Played: Fairy Tale, Pow Wow, Red November, Löwendynastie, Shark, Marracash.

First things: I’ve just updated three earlier entries from the past few months that had the wrong date, in fact, the wrong year! “2008” entries now corrected to 2009s.
Number of gamers down a bit tonight, but it was good to see Mark back at the table.
And I used the real camera tonight, in order to lift the quality of pics here a little. I’m quite pleased with the close-ups for Red November, Shark and Marracash below…

The usual starting game and players at Paul’s place: Hardly needs stating, but those not commonly around between 6:30 and 7pm, Alex, Pat and Jeff played Fairly Tale. Blah blah blah… :-) (private joke). Actually there is one difference tonight, and that is that I actually know who won: Alex.

Pow Wow: Amusing party game. Everyone (up to 8 players) wears a Rambo headband. Stick a feather in so that only you don’t see the number on it. Then play a progressive bluff bid for the total value of all head feathers until someone successfully or unsuccessfully calls the bluff. After three misses you’re out, and when only three players remain, the winner is the player with the least number of misses.
Sorry about the focus in the pic. I want to say something about the significance of the numbers on the particular headbands visible, but the joke would be too unsubtle…
5 mins rules and setup; 15 mins game time.
Results: Paul wins – hooray. Pat and Mark next in line (although order may be wrong or equal between those two). Then Alex, who was third eliminated, then Brian second elim, and Jeff the 1st eliminated.

Red November: A controversial cooperative. Alex insisted that, special circumstances notwithstanding (and assuming true and fair balanced d10), the best way to play for responding to all hazards etc., was to spend on each turn one minute only on tasks, and therefore attempt to roll 1s on the d10. I think we all understood this to be true statistically and in the context of how the game worked, but I was nagged by the knowledge that it was possible that a 1 might never be rolled during a game. But he stuck with his approach, as did Mark, and their rolls possibly did validate the method, at least in our game. But with 6 players there are an awful lot of events to work through and around. Unfortunately they got the better of us. Despite surviving numerous fires and threats of asphyxiation, several floods and a few drownings (we played the ‘less deadly dying’ variant), and just surviving the Kraken attack, with about 7 minutes left on the clock structural integrity failed and the sub was crushed under the deep ocean pressure. Bummer.
(BTW, “Kraken” comes up as an unknown word in my spell check. One of the suggestions is “Kramer”. Should have known we had a Cylon in our midst… :-)
(Also BTW, note the spinning d10 out of focus in the background of the close-up pic…)
7 mins rules & setup; 108 mins game time.

Löwendynastie: New (or at least, first-time playing) card game brought over by Pat. Kind of trick-taking follow-suit meets Frank’s Zoo, abd our third game to accommodate 6 players tonight.
About 6 mins rules & setup; 44 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 10. Jeff: 9. Brian: 7. Mark: 6. Alex: 5. Paul: 4.

Shark: Share market speculating in which prices are determined by spatial positioning of pieces resulting from die rolls. Similarities in that sense to Acquire, but this is better for some reason.
Some of has have played this in years past at Richard’s place, but Pat’s set seems to be more recent with little buildings instead of pegs, and we think the shark region in the middle of the board is also a more recent innovation.
Good fun, but too short – I could have played this again but done better knowing that the die roll favoured green over the other colours…!
6 mins rules & setup; 43 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: 110. Alex: 102. Brian: 63. Paul: 37. Pat: 24.

Marracash: Another speculating game, although quite different. Years since I’ve played this one, about buying shops in a north-African city street market, then attempting to manoeuvre shoppers and tourists into your doorways to gain a cash return. I thought I was doing well in this, but I ending up over-spending on shop stand auctions and perhaps not enough time working the shoppers to gain movers’ cuts, etc. Interesting little chess-game considerations made more interesting by virtue of having 4 players.
12 mins rules & setup; 55 mins game time.
Results: Pat: $3900. Jeff: $3000. Paul: $2750. Alex: $2050.