I hosted an afternoon of gaming at my house in Sherwood before departing on my New York trip.  Julie and the boys were already at the lake, so it was just me and the cats hosting.  Doug and Mimi, Ken, Kevin, and Elliot all joined in.

Linie 1

Doug, Mimi, Kevin, and Chris kicked off the afternoon with this tile-laying transportation game.  This is another "hidden agenda" game where each player has a secret route they must try to complete, starting by laying down trolley tracks and then running their trolley by rolling dice.  Each player must start at one numbered station and finish at the same numbered station across the board, stopping at two required trolley stops along the way.  I of course got wrapped up in my own route and didn't spend much time thinking about the other players (this is usually how I play games for the first time).  Before I knew it Mimi was running her trolley having completed her track.  Doug followed closely behind, then me.  I got some helpful dice rolls, allowing me to quickly jump through 2 trolley stops.  Doug made a wrong turn leaving an opening, and Mimi got bogged down with low dice rolls.  Kevin started his trolley, but after a few moves realized he didn't actually have a route that would allow him to visit his two stops.  Mimi quickly got her momentum back and beat us to the finish line.

Balloon Cup

Elliot and Ken played a game of Balloon Cup while waiting for Linie 1 to finish.  This was a first time for both, but they quickly got the hang of it and didn't have any lock-ups.  Elliot won but didn't appear to be thrilled with the game. Ken is eager to try it again.

Age of Steam

I asked Ken to bring this since I've been wanting to play it ever since I gave it to him as a birthday gift (that sounds very self-serving, doesn't it?).  This is a train game (I just realized this was a very transportation-oriented session - trolleys, balloons, and trains) set in middle America - comfortable territory for me since I've lived in 3 of the cities represented on the map (St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Des Moines).  Players compete by building rail line segments between cities and establishing shipping lanes to increase their annual revenues.  The longer a route used to ship the goods, the more income produced.  Cash flow is a major factor in this game - just like the real business world, you almost certainly need to issue shares to get cash to build your lines.  The player that gets to positive cash flow early has a good chance of pulling ahead, but there are some interesting mechanics that prevent a runaway situation.  As business grows, so does the complexity of managing operations (margins can decline), so there's a progressive income reduction at the end of each turn depending on the income level.  Ken got control of the middle of the board early, was fiscally responsible and got his locomotive upgraded to transport 3 segments by the third turn.  Ken won the game, with Doug, Elliot, and I close behind (I had a good comeback but never recovered from a negative cashflow situation early the game that knocked down my income two notches). Kevin finished a distant last but I got the sense this game wasn't his cup of tea.  I loved the game and am eager to try some of the other train games (18xx series, Volldampf).

Aladdin's Dragons

This was a bargain I picked up at the Wizards of the Coast store so Ken, Elliot and I decided to break it out and give it a first try.  This game surpassed my expectations.  The goal of the game is to collect the most artifacts, and artifacts are purchased using treasures.  Players successively place secret bids on treasure caves, town stores (where special abilities can be purchased), and palace rooms (where artifacts can be purchased).  In some cases only the winner of the auction in a particular room gets anything, in other cases there are staggered prizes even for the losers.  There was one point of confusion that we need to investigate - the rules state that in a 3-player game, only two sets treasures should be placed in the dragon caves (so the 3rd place finisher wouldn't win anything).  But the 3-player treasure cards show three treasure sets in several cases.  We assumed the cards overruled the printed rules, but we could have been wrong.  This was a very close game - Elliot one by collecting the most scroll artifacts, which was the tie-breaker and we all finished with six artifacts.

Mystery Rummy 4 - Al Capone

Ken and I wrapped up the evening with a shortened game (to 100) of MR4.  I like the rummy games, particularly Wyatt Earp, and I suggested this once since I think it plays better with two than Wyatt Earp.  I got off to a quick lead, but Ken cam back at the end to edge me out.  The final score was something like 112 to 102.  The designer, Mike Fitzgerald, wrote a great strategy article on spielfrieks that I need to read and digest before playing this again.

 We spent most of our time play-testing a new game, but we managed to squeeze in a playing of the new Fantasy Flight game Quicksand.  This is a racing game where you advance one of six adventurers on your turn by playing cards of that adventurer's color. The catch is each player is trying to advance their secret adventurer while trying to guess which adventurers belong to which opponents.  Adventurers can be delayed by moving them into tight situations (like quicksand) or by playing quicksand cards.  This is a simple, quick game that won't be for everybody.  It has a fair bit of bluffing and misdirection, but there isn't enough time to do much but advance your adventurer and slow down whoever is in the lead.  There's a substantial luck element as well - I only drew 3 cards of my adventurer's color the whole game.  Mimi pulled this one out with Doug and Ken a close second.  This one will be fun with the kids, but a bit too light for my taste.  I'll give it a 6.

Stopped by my friendly Rainy Day Games store over lunch today to pick up two new games: Balloon Cup and Quicksand.  I walked in planning to get just Balloon Cup (I played it with Angela last month), but the owner gave such glowing remarks about Quicksand that I just had to pick it up.  Since it is such a new release, I’ll try and write a review sometime over the next few weeks.

 I’ve made great progress on development over the past week.  Quick status update:

·         Core engine is essentially complete.  At least complete enough that I feel good moving on to the first UI.

·         The scoring algorithm was a bit tricky, but turned out to be very similar to the expropriation algorithm.  In fact, I’m going to be looking for some refactoring opportunities in both sets of code.  What I really need is a “street traversal visitor” of some sort, but I haven’t thought it through enough yet.

·         I’m up to about 30 unit tests right now – they’ve been instrumental in supporting some pretty heavy refactoring efforts.

·         My first UI will just be a standalone, Windows forms, hot-seat client to validate overall gameplay.

·         My next UI will probably be a web-based, real-time interface.

·         Finally, I plan to make a winforms-based networked real-time interface.  Hmmm… maybe I’ll use web services for the client protocol.

I might post another source drop this weekend in case anyone wants to see the core engine.  I’ve got two weeks of vacation coming up at Keuka Lake so I hope to have a working beta by the time I get back.

 I’m working on an online version of the game Fresh Fish by Friedemann Friese.  Some folks have asked to see early versions of the source code, particularly the expropriation algorithm.  I’ll post more thoughts on the design and implementation right here in a sort of development diary, so stay tuned.  You can download the source right here.

 My streak of hooking up with extremely cool groups of gamers across the USA continued this week. I’m in Dallas, TX for Microsoft TechEd, and managed to hook up with The Card Benders, a group of about 6-10 gamers that meets twice a week. Member John Haley was kind enough to respond to my query for groups on spielfrieks, so I joined them at a local Borders.

Turns out my timing was perfect – they had 7 show up, but 5 of them desperately wanted to play Mare Nostrum, but were reluctant to leave the other two to fend for themselves. I made three, so everyone was happy. I spent the evening gaming with Tim Isakson and Charles Schwope. On to the games…

Trias

We kicked things off with this game about dinosaur migration and plate tectonics. This one reminded me of Clans, but I enjoyed this more. I think the theme works, and I enjoy games with evolving playing surfaces. I felt that I could wrap my brain around the shifting out of tiles, and I think I played fairly well. I had a shot at winning, but Charles pulled ahead at the end with some strong moves. Might have to pick this one up.

Paris Paris

I’ve been wanting to play this one since reading the Gathering reports, so after spotting this in the bag-o-games, I requested we try this one next. In Paris Paris you are trying to open businesses in strategic locations in Paris to take advantage of the tourist bus lines. Some call this game light, but there’s clearly a strategic element to this game and I want to play some more. Most likely I’ll give it a try on BSW a few times before purchasing. I got crushed in this game – don’t recall the score, but I was in third and down by at least 8 points.

Schnäppchen Jagd (Good Deal Hunt)

This is a very unique trick-taking game. Rather than just trying to take the most tricks, or trying to avoid certain poison cards, players are trying to accumulate specific face values (the target changes throughout the game) or melds of other face values. For example, I might start the game trying to accumulate 3’s, but will of course accumulate (by taking tricks) other numbers as well. The goal is to consolidate the collection of other cards to as few distinct face values as possible. Scoring at the end is calculated by subtracting the number of “other” cards from the number of targets accumulated. After each hand, players can exchange cards in their bad pile by sending a single face value back to the deck. Players get to transfer any cards in excess of three to their good pile. The result is that early in the game players are trying to take tricks and accumulate groups, while later in the game players are avoiding tricks, dumping cards from their hand, and trying to take only tricks that help them get target cards or consolidate their holdings. I was happy to score zero; I believe Tim won.

Zirkus Flohcati (Flea Circus)

This is a fun, light card game where players are trying to accumulate sets of cards, and players get the choice of choosing one of a set of face-up cards or flipping until a better one shows up. If a card is turned up that is the same suit as an existing card, then that card is discarded and the player loses a turn. Scoring is straightforward, but just read the BGG entry to see more. I just learned that the Star Wars: Attack of the Clones card game is the same game – my kids will like this one. Tim won this game easily.

The group playing Mare Nostrum finished at about this time, so we sat around chatting about gaming, geekness, and Oregon. We somehow got on the subject of train games, and Randy Shipp shared a hilarious story about a letter he wrote to the designer of Tracks to Telluride (John Bohrer) about what he (and the group) thought were some design flaws. Apparently John didn’t think too highly of Randy’s comments and questioned the sophistication of his American gaming audience. You’ll have to ask him yourself for the whole story and the punchline.

 We will make our annual trek to Keuka Lake in western New York in July.  Julie and the boys usually take the train, but since we have a shorter time window this year (Jacob’s baseball season is longer), they’ll fly out.  I’ll probably join them July 1 – July 10.  We are just up the west lake road from the Keuka Yacht Club, and my favorite pastime there is sailing the Flying Dutchman and the Sunfish.

  I have at least two session reports to post, one from the gaming at Kevin Graham’s a few weeks ago, and one from my trip to Burbank, CA.  I’ve also been playing some games with the family, most notably:

·         Formula De – picked this up cheap at WOTC

·         Star Wars: Epic Duals

·         Puerto Rico – finally played with Jacob

·         Star Wars RPG

·         Dungeons and Dragons, 3E (yes, both Jacob and Matthew are playing D&D)

I’m heading to Dallas, TX (my place of birth!) next week for TechEd, so I’ll try and hook up with some gaming Tue or Wed night there.