The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Pat’s place.
Present: Jeff, Alex, Brian, Pat, Paul.
Played: Dragon Delta, Chronology, Luna Llena.

A small group of hard-core gamers tonight with a modest sample of games to try from Pat’s shelves. Dragon Delta close-up is the nicest pic of the night.

Dragon Delta: Brian’s choice, this one.
Hop from rock to rock with the help of stones and planks, and judiciously timed playing of cards. Classic for explorations in groupthink and for game theory.
11 mins rules and setup; about 55 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue) wins. Brian (red) very close. Alex (yellow), Jeff (green) and Paul (black) in there running interference.

Chronology: Build a set of cards, each marked with a unique year (actually some years have multiple cards) and a trivia question pertaining to that year. You don’t have to get the year correct, just the correct order in your chronology. Although Pat did make up the instant house rule that getting the correct year provided a bonus card…
This was the best game of the night requiring the most actual skill and talent.
About 1 min rules and setup; 30 mins game time.
Results: Paul: 10 (11 if you apply the house rule of +1 bonus for picking the exact year of an event - in this case it was 1933, the date of the 21st amendment to the US constitution, repealing prohibition!). Pat: 9. Brian, Jeff: 8. Alex: 7.

Luna Llena: Four humans explore a forest from a camp site, attempting to find the trail of pesky werewolves that have kidnapped two non-player characters. Avoid werewolf encounters (coz they tend to tear you apart), find helpful stuff in the forest, and try to uncover the trail of the werewolves in order to uncover their lair. The goal is to do this in order to free the human hostages and find the map to lead you out of the forest.
Is it any coincidence that the words luna, lupus, and ludo all start with “lu-”?
28 mins rules and setup; 176 mins game time.
Results: Pat, Jeff, Brian and Paul, normal humans, beat Alex, three werewolves. In the process both Jeff and Brian were werewolved to death towards the end of the game. Paul managed to retrieve a hostage from the werewolf lair, as well as the all-important map to safety, which allowed Pat (playing tiny Asian girl Ruka) to make it out of the forest and thus satisfy our collective victory condition.

Venue: Brian’s place.
Present: Jeff, Alex, Don, Brad, Pat, Richard, Brian, Paul.
Played: Roborally, Scottish Highland Whisky Race, Genesis, Rum & Pirates, Assyria, Fairy Tale, Geschenkt, Boomtown, Ticket to Ride Switzerland.

In my rush to get here tonight I couldn’t find the camera, so I had to use the Nokia. Sorry: Quality down as a result.

Roborally: Just underway when I arrived at Brian’s.
Results: Pat: 1st. Brad: 2nd. Alex: 3rd.

Scottish Highland Whisky Race: Simultaneous bidding of “malt points” to move along the track, picking up whisky bottles along the way. Second-guess opponent moves, because each space co-occupied costs +1 malt point per co-occupying opponent to leave.
Collected whisky bottles score points, even more if you land on a ’selling’ space. Cross the finish line first and collect bonus points, but this is not necessarily what will give you the win.
So, a race game, with a twist. I like the theme, but there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the game play (for me, at least).
40 mins game time; rules and setup not recorded.
Results: Jeff (green): 15. Brian (red): 14. Don (yellow), Paul (orange): 12. Richard (purple): 11.

Genesis: Played by the Roborallians.
Results: Alex, Pat: 47 (equal first). Brad: 44.
Comment in my notebook: “Dinosaur genocide needs a Tyrannosaurus Rex”. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds pretty relevant.

Rum & Pirates: With a 2006 publication date it seems this one has a few years on it. But the first time I saw this was in Don’s game bag maybe a week or a few ago. And an airing tonight at last. Each player has a limited number of movement space points per round, indicated nicely by little coloured pirate figures, that are used to indicate on the board which tracks have been used (and therefore unusable for the rest of the round), to trace a path around the board and collect points tokens (or potential points tokens) along the way. Other benefits are available too, for example the spaces that provide extra pirate figures, a feature I was able to use to good effect throughout the game.
But you need coins to grant yourself extra moves in a given turn and to use the board wrap-around moves. Unfortunately for me, and as experienced occasionally by others, running out of coins is a Bad Thing. Two turns in a row I was hosed by Don who, intentionally or not (I’m still not sure!), as the player to my right, successfully stranded me in a corner from which I could not escape (having no money)! For these two turns I managed to win the higher bonus points, since left-over pirates do die-based wrangling for bonuses. However, in my estimation I could have picked up maybe another 3-6 points per turn. This would have put me in contention for second spot, had I not been hosed. However, I doubt that I could have challenged Don for first place - he just picked up too too many points from pub gambling!
Nice game this one. My advice for the uninitiated: Don’t leave yourself short of money, especially early in each given round.
20 mins rules and setup; 95 mins game time.
Results: Don (blue): 93. Brian (red): 63. Jeff (black): 59. Paul (gold): 58. Richard (silver): 40.

Assyria:
Results: Alex: 120. Brad: 107. Pat: 98.

Fairy Tale:
Results: Pat: 35. Alex: 34. Brad: 33.

Geschenkt:
Results (less negative is better): Pat: -60. Brad: -66. Al: -73.

Boomtown: I’ve seen this game around for ages, but tonight was the first playing of this for me. Bid for the right to choose cards that generate mining income each turn from a 2d6 dice roll (a la Settlers). Improve your lot and impact other players with special cards.
I did get a little lucky early in the game with a “6” card that paid off about three times within five rolls, and this gave me slightly better bidding power in some early turns. But I reckon I used this to time my bids more easily, rather than trying too hard to over-bid other players.
Clearly a game requiring great skill.
7 mins rules explan and setup; 49 mins game time.
Results: Paul: 116. Alex: 105. Richard: 95. Pat: 67.

Ticket to Ride Switzerland:
About 8 mins rules and setup; 57 mins game time.
Results: Don won with a huge score and an asterisk, against Brian, Jeff, and Brad.
The most observant will notice the anomaly already and therefore the reason for the asterisk…
Yes - TtRS is intended for 2-3 players only, but these guys pushed over that limit, and acknowledge that normal game play probably broke as a result.

Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Jeff, Alex, Don, Matt, Brad, Pat, Richard, Paul.
Played: King Lui, Yspahan, Manila, Chaos in the Old World, Cartagena, At the Gates of Loyang, Quixo.

King Lui: Regal cuisine-flavoured set collecting to get the evening under way.
2 mins rules and setup; 12 mins game time.
Results: Richard: 55. Jeff: 48. Paul: 46. Pat: 44. Don: 17.

Yspahan: Markets and camels. But mostly camels.
About 40 mins.
Results: Brad: 76. Alex: 74. Jeff: 61. Matt: 60.

Manila: This one appeared in Don’s game bag tonight, and I vaguely recalled enjoying it when played before, courtesy of Pat. Pat was prepared to play it again, but told us that he wasn’t rapt and had in fact traded his copy away!
This game is essentially gambling on outcomes and derivatives thereof, spiced up with a hint of share collecting, and the theme of commodity boats making it into port for pay-offs.
Yeah, this was not quite as much fun as I remember it being…
About 30 mins setup and rules refresh, 54 mins game time.
Results: Richard (orange): 174. Paul (red): 83. Pat (blue): 78. Don (black): -16.

Chaos in the Old World:
Virgin playing for Brad’s copy.
No details here about who played which race. No further comments but this was a very loud game!
About 125 mins.
Results: Alex: 1st. Matt: 2nd. Jeff: 3rd. Brad: 4th.

Cartagena: Filler for the Chaosians.
About 15 mins.
Results: Brad: 1st. Alex, Jeff: Equal second, “back with the cab catchers” (according to my notes).

At the Gates of Loyang: More Uwe Rosenberg economic development goodness, in the wake of Agricola and Le Havre. In this case our theme is vegetable farming and trading in rural China.
I was really liking this, all the way up to the end, despite it being a largely solo game. But then the final scores reveal how close we all were, and I started to have some doubts about variability and replayability. Certainly I’d like to give it another go to observe this, ie., whether there are significantly different strategies that can be tried, or whether the differences are only tactical and opportunistic?
Oh, and I am rather annoyed that my close-up pic came out all blurry, so I didn’t bother to expand it to 800×600 (only half of that here).
30 mins rules and setup; 137 mins game time.
Results: Richard: 19 (+$1). Pat: 18 (+$3). Don: 17 (+$18). Paul: 17 (+$16).

Quixo: Wooden dice cube abstracto, a present for the 8yr old from his Grandma, played by Alex and Jeff to end the night for them.
Alex wins 2 games to 0 against Jeff.

Venue: Richard’s place.
Present: Jeff, Alex, Brian, Neil F., Pat, Richard, Paul.
Played: Make ‘n’ Break Würfelspiel (dice game), Uptown, Endeavor, Masquerade, Alea Iacta Est, Ad Astra, Roma.

Check out close-ups for Endeavor and Ad Astra…

Make ‘n’ Break Würfelspiel: Brian brought this as the light ice-breaker for the evening. Two rounds played only. Neil and I had points surges courtesy of special build cards.
13 minutes.
Results: Neil: 15. Paul: 13. Alex: 11. Jeff: 8. Brian: 7.

Uptown: There may have been some spontaneous Billy Joel-ing at the mention of this one.
5 mins rules and setup; 24 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 1st. Brad: 2nd. Neil F: 3rd. Richard: 4th.

Endeavor: This is a very cool game, and the first time I’ve got to play it after it having done the rounds for a few months within the group. A little bit of Puerto Rico-ness with choosing buildings, some Caylus-ness, or maybe Goa-ness with the management and driving up of different activity tracks (being buildings, population, labour, and card management), and a little bit of area majority-ness with on-board tokens. And, a touch of pussing with cannons, just to nudge up the insecurity and angst and sense of a war machine gap, which is quite nice but not an overwhelming element to the game.
A fascinatingly-close score for this game, and I’ve got no doubt that with another playing of this my relative score would go down. But heck, I’d love to give this another go sometime soon.
20 mins rules and setup; 95 mins game time.
Results: Alex (white): 55. Jeff (green), Brian (red), Paul (black): all 53 each. Yes, really.

Masquerade: Apparently some kind of role-playing aspect to this, but I can’t say any more. I assume Pat got some kind of ‘power’ that allowed him to turn over points on a turn-by-turn basis, and everyone else decided they couldn’t reel him in and therefore didn’t bother and just played for place. Sounds miserable.
Update: In my original score record, I had Pat: 45. I’m sure I asked for confirmation at the time and was assured this was true! Apparently it was a joke, and Pat’s actual score was more like 9. Or maybe 11. But it felt like it was 45, according to the others that played against Pat, “the zephyr in the dark pale of night” (even if he does say so himself).
83 mins incl. rules.
Results: Pat: 11 (or maybe 9). Brad: 7. Richard: 6. Neil: 3.

Alea Iacta Est:
Romanes eunt dice - “People called Romans they go the dice…?”
10 mins rules and setup; 35 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): 45. Richard (orange): 44. Brian (green): 38. Neil F. (grey): 37.

Ad Astra:
Exploration, discovery, resource management, and scoring it big - in space this time.
Check out the close-up on those terraformers.
18 mins rules and setup; 64 mins game time.
Results: Alex (yellow): 80. Paul (green): 71. Jeff (blue): 54. Brad (grey): 46.

Roma:
Night closer for Brian and Richard. We left them to it, so no game data at the time of writing…
Results: Richard: (insert score here). Brian: (insert score here).

Venue: Pat’s place.
Present: Pat, Alex, Jeff, Brad, Richard, Brian, Lindsay, Paul.
Played: Genesis, Le Havre, Scripts and Scribes, Macao, Kanaloa, Ra the Dice Game, Uruk.

Cosy gaming on a Sydney Winter’s night at Pat’s place.
There may have been a bunch of games already played before I got there.
My pics tonight were taken with the Nokia and have come out so crap that I almost didn’t bother to add them. I have included them here for the purposes of historical record only!

Genesis: This was was just underway when I turned up.
Final results show it close: Alex: 29. Richard: 28. Pat: 27. Brian: 25.

Le Havre: This was just being considered when I arrived, so I was happy to join in. We played the short game (12 turns), and apparently the first ever for Brad. So Brad was up against it from the start. For me, it was the usual struggle to keep a sustainable food stockpile while taking and making opportunistic build moves. I didn’t get a Wooden ship until a few turns before the end, and Lindsay didn’t get one at all (neither did Brad, I think).
Jeff’s game, once again.
15 mins rules and setup; 77 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (green): 88. Paul (timber), Lindsay (red): 79. Brad (purple): 54.

Scripts and Scribes:
Played by the Genesians on the other table.
Dunno what this was all about. Alchemy, maybe…?
BGG has the same game listed as Biblios, which is presumably a different edition of the same game.
Results: Alex: 5. Pat: 4 (probably 2nd on tie break). Brian: 4. Richard: 3.

Macao: Second playing for me (and maybe Jeff, not sure about Lindsay), but first time for Brad, who just got crushed on the penalties for building up cards. In this game I managed to plan for card requirements to build them out of my ‘penalty box’. But, I rarely bothered to look at their benefits and position for them – I was just more concerned with churning them out! And that’s one of the reasons for my mediocre score!
21 mins rules and setup; 82 mins game time.
Results: Lindsay (orange): 77. Jeff (brown): 59. Paul (white): 56. Brad (yellow): 26.

Kanaloa:
South Pacific island hopping. Cool volcano piece.
Results: Alex: 42. Pat: 40. Richard: 32. Brian: 30.

Ra the Dice Game:
Something light to end the night. I was doing OK until the Ra indicator just raced up the track too quickly. And a flood would have put me in touch, but it was not to be.
23 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (green): 31. Lindsay (yellow): 18. Paul (red): 10.

Uruk:
My pic here is very ordinary (apologies again) and I assume I’ve got it right - this is Uruk in the picture…? Or is it Scripts and Scribes?
Results: Alex: 21 (1st on tie break). Pat: 21. Richard: 19. Brian: 17.