The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Paul’s place
Present: Pat, Brian, Richard, Alex, Jeff, Lawrence, Nick, Paul.
Played: Lightning Reaction, Manga Manga, Masters Gallery, Princes of Machu Picchu, Gloria Mundi, Fairy Tale, Witch’s Brew, Lawrence’s Game, King’s Breakfast, Maori, Africa.

We welcomed game designer Lawrence R. to the session tonight. A few of us first met Lawrence at the recent Sydney Protospiel run by Boardgames Australia and even played some of his game designs since. In addition, we got in a bunch of good game-playing tonight.
Also, I’m pleased to say, much better pictures here tonight (video segment notwithstanding). Check out some of the full-sizes in the pics.

Lightning Reaction: This one was inspired by Pass the Bomb from last week, as another simple game concept to really raise anxiety levels. In addition to the standard pictures, I thought I’d try to capture some of the live action too. (Unfortunately the output quality of my $20 video camera (yes, $20) is not so good with indoor shots under artificial light. Audio is not too pleasant either. But hey - you get the idea…). And yes, I know - I can’t spell “lightning”. Sue me.
Pat won.

Manga Manga: Much-maligned real-time card game that I observed briefly, until I was diverted by Nick’s arrival with Masters Gallery.
6 mins rules and setup; 17 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: 6. Pat: 4. Alex, Brian, Lawrence: 1. Richard: 0.

Masters Galllery: This is like a Modern Art variant, without auctions. We only played 2-player, and it seems to be designed for this, although I don’t see why it couldn’t support more players. Also apparently designed for four or five rounds, we played just two to sync up with the Manga Mangans.
18 mins incl. rules and setup. 2 rounds only.
Results: Nick: 58. Paul: 53.

Princes of Machu Picchu: Those crazy Incans.
Seriously, from a distance at least, this did look like my kind of game. I’d be keen to have a go at this next time it appears on the games table.
23 mins rules & setup; 86 mins game time.
Results: Richard: 45. Brian, Nick: 44. Lawrence: 39.

Gloria Mundi: I admit I wasn’t so enthusiastic about this offering when it appeared, based on previous experiences with it. But, as with many games, I was prepared to give it another chance.
While my earliest building choice was a bit of a dud, I eventually made up for that with later purchases and eventually specialised in green blocks (farms) and buildings, with a white (legions) backup. Some false starts with the Gold and I never held these cards, let alone add buildings. Hence obtaining Gold tokens was really difficult. But I managed to pick up just enough to add more farm buildings and somehow finessed that these were mainly vp generators. By about halfway through the game I was just pulling ahead on the score track, and by 3/4 the others considered themselves playing for place. This is such a rare outcome (ie., for me to win a game like this by such a significant margin) that I can’t help but wonder whether we’ve still got some of the rules wrong …
13 mins rules & setup; 75 mins game time.
Results: Paul (smoky): 40. Jeff (green): 25. Alex (orange): 24. Pat (blue): 21.

Fairy Tale: Between-games filler. I played this, without actually knowing what I was doing, which was kind of fun, in a strange way. Particularly satisfying in not coming last, which maybe says more about the game than the players…
About 10 mins.
Results: Pat: 42. Alex: 34. Paul: 26. Jeff: 20.

Witch’s Brew: Other end of the table to Lawrence’s home brew.
5 mins rules & setup; 40 mins game time.
Results: Alex: 29. Pat: 27. Jeff: 17.

Lawrence’s game: Other end of the table to Witch’s Brew. Which reminds me – Mark actually showed up briefly, but not to play any games! Importantly, he did bring some of his actual home brew – as in chilli beer! Thanks Mark.
BTW, I’m deliberatly leaving out details here of game prototypes to respect confidentiality whilst in a pre-published state. I’m in a phase of enjoying original design prototypes at the moment, and will continue to hassle Richard and Alex (and anyone else!) to get a move-on with their designs too.
5 mins rules; 40 mins game time for 3 rounds.

King’s Breakfast: More filler-fodder.
Not long. (Thanks for the time-keeping details, Alex.)
Results: Pat: 98. Alex: 96. Jeff: 68.

Maori: The intention was to introduce Lawrence to another new game, but he had to leave before we really got started. Pat, Brian and I finished it through. Pat creamed us.
7 mins rules & setup; 40 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 56. Brian: 32. Paul: 25.

Africa: This is a game that looks great, but hasn’t been played here for a long time – I had always been a little disappointed that there wasn’t too much to this. Having said that, Richard, Alex and Jeff seemed to get some enjoyment from it tonight. Maybe it’s just a matter of accepting that this is simply a light, set-collecting and score optimising game.
10 mins rules & setup; 40 mins game time.
Results: Alex: 90. Richard: 78. Jeff: 74.