Today was the regional Chess for Success scholastic tournament, and I coached 10 boys from Archer Glen to compete for the right to compete in the state tournament in March.  There were 11 teams competing and we needed to finish 1st or 2nd to advance.  I knew we had a strong team, but I had no expectations of advancing and just wanted the boys to have fun and try their hardest.

They did amazingly well!  This is a team competition in five rounds, swiss-style.  Of the 10 players we send to the tournament, we count the scores for the top four players on the team.  Players get 1 point for a win, 1/2 point for a draw, and 0 for a loss.  So the maximum team score over five rounds is 20 points.

Our team got off to a great start with a perfect score of 8 after the first two rounds.  Things got tough then, with a couple of our heavy hitters taking losses in the third round, where we score 2.5 points.  By the time the final round came up, we were tied for second place with 12 points, with two other teams knocking on the door with 11.5.  We needed some key final round victories to secure a second place finish and a trip to the state championship.

Our hero of the day, Justin Davis, carried us with a perfect 5-0 record, winning the individual championship.  Jacob and Conner Hendryx had critical final round victories to give the team a final score of 14.5, tying them for second place and a trip to the state championship!  Jacob finished the day with 3 points, making him one of the top 4 players on the Archer Glen team.

Matthew had a great day as well - he held the team's 10th position, and was the only first grader playing in the tournament.  He finished the day with 2 points and felt great about his achievements.

On my way home to Portland from Seattle on Thursday, I stopped by the Uberplay Entertainment headquarters in Issaquah.  Almost a year ago Jeremy Young, invited me to come see his crew and some of the great things they were getting ready to ship.  That certainly turned out to be a prophetic statement, since they had a banner year.  New England won the Games Magazine “Game of the Year 2004” award and Wildlife won “Advanced Strategy Game of the Year 2004” so they are clearly on a roll.

I love visiting game manufacturers - there is such a spirit of entrepreneurism at this companies.  Many do it as a labor of love and are fortunate to break even or take a small profit.  I get the clear sense that Uberplay has loftier goals, and given the talent they have at the helm (Jeremy, Matt Molen, and Guido Teuber) they have a great shot at achieving their goals.  Ultimately their business will succeed or fail based not only on the quality of the games they produce, but also the quality of their marketing strategy.  I think their approach of marketing to the broad religious sector and narrower (but still huge) Mormon market (Inspiration Games) is brilliant.  Believe me, they are selling many more copies of The Settlers of Zarahemla than they are New England.  That's fine by me - though I have no interest in playing the Mormon-themed games, if those sales can underwrite new mass appeal boardgames then we all win.

I asked Jeremy if I could show them KC Humphrey's New Eden prototype to solicit feedback, and he gracefully obliged.  Guido, Jeremy, and I sat down for a partial game so that I could explain the theme and mechanics.  I am grateful for their time and attention and they were able to provide some very valuable feedback that I am taking to KC.

Unfortunately I was unable to get my hands on any of their upcoming new releases (Oasis and Tongiaki in particular) - they needed all of their available copies for the upcoming Toy Fair in NYC.  I did get a nice consolation prize though - Jeremy donated a slightly damaged copy of Ark of the Covenant, a nice variant of Carcassonne.

I travelled to the Seattle/Redmond area this week for business, and managed to squeeze in some late-night gaming on Wednesday evening.  Tom Powers from Boards & Bits was kind enough to invite me to join his group, a collection of mostly Microsofties.

Alhambra

I requested this before my arrival, having played it once on BSW I was eager to see it in real life.  It certainly is a pretty game, and has some interesting purchasing mechanics.  The goal of the game is to build a courtyard out of tiles and gain majorities in as many different colors/styles of buildings as possible.  There are walls on the tiles which also factor into scoring, as players get points for the number of connected outer wall segments.  Walls also constrain the building of tiles, since every open space must be connected to the center of the courtyard (i.e., no walling off).

On a player's turn they may either pick up some money (there are four different types of currency) or purchase a building.  To purchase a building, you must pay at least the value of the building in the specified currency.  If you are able to pay the exact amount, you get to take another action.  If you are forced to pay over the amount, you don't get change and your turn is ended.  One of the key strategies of the game is accumulating the best set of currency that will give you flexibility when purchasing.

This game is fun, but for a few reasons I doubt I'll purchase it.  First, there are some human factors issues - too many colors at play, with color schemes for both building types and the different currencies.  I found myself checking and rechecking my hand and the buildings for sale to see if I could purchase them.  Others in the group shared similar concerns.  Second, the luck factor is a bit too high for me.  The game can swing greatly in one player's favor depending on both currency and building draws.  This is true of many games, but for some reason it bothered me more in this game.

Tichu

I didn't play Tichu, but one group of four played for a few hours and seemed to be having a lot of fun.  I haven' played this game, but I do enjoy trick taking games and have played a few that are similar to this (like Gang of Four).

Penny Stock

Dave then brought out his prototype of a simple stock trading game.  Tom, Nick, Sharry, Dave, and I played.

This is a fun little game.  The game plays in four trading days.  At the start of each day, each player decides whether to sell short (hope the stocks go down) or long (stocks go up) for the day.  Within the trading day, players accumulate stock cards for 1 of 8 companies in 4 different sectors.  Each player in turn plays action cards which affect the market, sending stocks up or down.  The action cards are designed to be balanced (i.e., net zero change if you sum them together), but since they often give players choices of which stocks to send up or down, each game will play differently.  At the end of the trading day, players earn money based on how far their stocks climbed or fell, multiplied by the number of shares held of those stocks.

I enjoyed the game, though there was some discussion afterwards about some ways to make the scoring less linear.  It seems to easy for one player to pull very far ahead if the stock goes up a 5 or 6 notches.  A few ideas were shared, including income reduction (ala Age of Steam), a progressive daily tax (i.e., the more you make the more % tax you pay), or a non-linear trading scale (similar to Acquire).  Hopefully I'll get a chance to play this again after he tweaks it.

Attika

A few of us diehards stayed to play Attika, the game of city-state building on the Greek peninsula.  The game is gorgeous and was my favorite of the night.  There are two ways to win - build all of your buildings, or build a contiguous string of buildings between two temples.  Buildings are built using a typical resource model (like Settlers of Catan), but there are some interesting tweaks that make this game much more interesting:

1. There are resources on the board that can be used by placing a building on top of or adjacent to the resource.  For example, if a building costs three mountains and one hill, and it gets built on a mountain adjacent to another mountain and hill, then the player only needs to play one landscape card from his hand.
2. There are tech trees for the different groups of buildings, and if you build in the right sequence, chaining buildings together, then buildings can be placed for free.

I didn't do too well in this first playing.  Tom made a comment at the start of the game that it is rare to connect two temples unless playing with newbies.  I suppose he was right, because he ended up winning in this manner!  He was closing in on his second temple from two different directions, and I was scrambling to cut him off.  In doing so, I also cut off Nick, preventing him from supporting me.

I liked this game so much I purchased it the next day from Boards & Bits.  Julie and I played a two-player game Friday evening - the rules are very simple and easy to teach.

The latest Piecepack design contest was announced today, and this time they are looking for group submissions from no less than two co-authors.  You can read the original announcement on the Yahoo group posting.

Jason Sato (aka Magic Rat), with whom I had the pleasure of gaming in Arizona last year, has a new weblog.

Every once in a while I get asked what chess books for kids would I recommend.  I haven't read too many, but here are a few recommendations:

• Starting Chess, by Harriet Castor.
• Checkmate at Chess City, by Piers Harper. This one is especially good if your child enjoys puzzles.
• Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, by Bobby Fischer.  This is not a good book to learn chess from, but a great way to improve skills.  Jacob just read this cover to cover and enjoyed working through the puzzles.

Jacob and I traveled across town to the Rude household for some Sunday afternoon gaming yesterday.  Matthew had a birthday party to attend, so it was a good chance to play some heavier four-player games.

New Eden

I've written about New Eden before - this is the prototype developed by KC Humphrey.  I'm going to be demonstrating the game for some folks later this week, so I wanted to brush up on my knowledge of the rules and practice teaching it to a group.  Ken, Brandon, and Jacob had not played yet, so this was a perfect opportunity.  I have described the mechanics of the game before, so I won't repeat any of those details here.

We had limited time for this game, so we only played one season (a normal game has two seasons, with a scoring round after each).  I found that I had remembered the rules well and didn't have to reference the rulebook very frequuently.  We used the small board configuration for four players, and started with half the fuel supply (21, though after talking with KC it should have been only 20).

The group enjoyed the game very much.  The end of the game found everyone thinking about strategies, how to take advantage of certain card combinations, etc. which is a very good sign.  I mostly avoided conflict and got three uncontested farms near a lake, but Brandon turned out to be the smarter player and finished with three more points than I, taking first place.

Amun Re

Ken was eager to bring out Amun Re, as was I, so that was our next choice.  Every time I play this game I enjoy it more.  Unfortunately, this time I had a similar result as the last time I played this game - very strong start in the old age, poor finish in the new age.

I exhausted my funds at the end of the old age via sacrifice, trying to maximize the scoring of my two temples.  I also drew no bonus power cards in the new age (I was able to score two of them in the old age, so I guess it evened out).

Brandon played a very strong game again, quietly gaining two temples, one bonus power card, and a temple majority on one side of the Nile.  He finished far out in front, beating me out by seven points.

El Grande

There wasn't much time left, but I was eager to teach the group how to play El Grande and at least get in a few rounds before taking Jacob home.  I really love this game (I've only played it 1.5 times though).  Very easy to teach and learn, beautiful components (perhaps the nicest I've ever seen in a board game), but challenging to play well.

We only played through the first scoring round, but Brandon completed his trifecta, showing up the adults one more time with a victory.  His victory was sealed when Jacob, Ken, and I all chose the same province for our Castille caballeros!

I can't believe I forgot to post this.  A while back I mentioned the latest PiecePack design contest, Solitary Confinement.  I even submitted a (very lightweight) entry, PieceGaps.  Earlier this month the contest results were posted, and Piece Packing Pirates is the winner.  I haven't played it yet, but I do hope to soon.

Jacob and I had some spare time this afternoon while Julie and Matthew went shopping for a birthday present.  Looking into the game closet for a two-player game, I pulled out Senjutsu, a two-player game we purchased at GenCon Indy last summer.  This game didn't receive broad distribution, but I have seen it locally at Rainy Day Games. I strongly recommend this game if you are a fan of chess or stratego - you can order it online directly from the manufacturer.

Each player has 10 warriors, 3 of which are officers.  Warriors can move orthogonally while officers can also move diagonally - officers also pay a better reward when eliminated.  At the start of the game, players arm each of their warriors with three weapons, resulting in a highly customizable setup (learn more at the Senjutsu home page).  Similar to Stratego, one of these weapons is a scroll that, if captured, results in an immediate victory for the capturing player.  There are three ranged weapons - swords, spears, and bows, each with their own abilities (bows are by far the most powerful but are also scarce).  You can also equip your warriors with armor (absorbs an attack), a counter-attack (used to win hand-to-hand combats), and a special Ninja that, when abandoned, acts as a bomb and will destroy a capturing warrior.  The arms are stackable blocks that are only visible to the owning player.

Players alternate taking turns where they can attack (optional), move 1 space (required), attack again (optional), move 1 space (optional), and attack (optional).  The board has a few obstacles - a palace in the center which blocks line of site and cannot be entered, and four forests that block line of site but can be traveled through (though you cannot attack from a forest nor end your turn there).

When a warrior is eliminated, he leaves behind all of his arms - either player may then recover these by moving a warrior to that space.  A warrior can only carry four arms at a time, though there are no stacking limits.

Finally, each player has a stack of clan cards that give special abilities.  Clan cards are awarded every time you eliminate an enemy warrior (only 1 per turn though).  If you eliminate an enemy officer, you also get to draw a replacement arm block and place it on one of your warriors.

Jacob and I had a fun match.  We both started defensively, firing long-range bow shots to try and pick off enemy units, though we had both put adequate armor on our front lines.  As we moved out to confront each other, warriors started to be eliminated - Jacob was ahead 1 or 2 warriors at one point.  I was able to penetrate deeply into his lines though, killing off a warrior and capturing his stack, then using that stack to eliminate two more close by and withstand a counter-attack.  This was the turning point in the game, as it was only a short while until I captured the scroll.

This is a very fun, quick two-player game that I highly recommend.  The parts are very high quality and it plays in less than an hour (15-20 minutes of that is setup time).

I checked out Greg Aleknevicus' Games for Sale list and found a few things I wanted for a reasonable price - plus he was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale!  So this is what I ordered; they arrived yesterday and I hope to play at least two of them over the weekend:

• Amazing Labyrinth - this sounded like a great, light kids game that the family would enjoy.
• Quebec 1759 - I'm becoming a sucker for those Columbia Games block games. I'm fairly certain this was the first block game published - this guy apparently agrees.  This one came out in 1972, and the version I got is the original.  Chris Farrell put together a nice “best of“ geeklist for Columbia Games.
• Tally Ho - Another of the Kosmos two-player small box games.  This was effectively my “free“ game.  Haven't tried it yet, but reviews are mostly favorable.