I will be heading to GameStorm after work (actually a bit early so that I can deliver a copy of KC's New Eden prototype to him in time for his session) today for some gaming goodness.  I plan to stay this evening, and may attend tomorrow night as well.  Dave Eggleston is hosting a late-night A Game of Thrones session that I'm very tempted to join if there is room.

On Sunday morning I will be running a three hour session where I will be demonstrating the latest batch of Uberplay games, including Oasis (to be renamed Desert Oasis), Hoity Toity, Tongiaki, and Relationship Tightrope.  These are all very solid games and I spent the week learning the rules, playing with the family, etc. to become acquainted.  I'll post reports over the weekend as things progress.

I usually avoid public political debates, but I can't resist this one.  In the past week I have received two emails from Ameri For Congress 2004, and I have no idea how I got on her email list.  Whether or not I agree with her views is irrelevant in this case, because I have two serious concerns:

1. The email was unsolicited.  If I somehow got on a list that she feels is authorized to use, she should specify such in her email.
2. The email contains no opt-out instructions.

I'm all for candidates using appropriate media to get their message out, but this is clearly in the spam category and I'm pretty furious.

I'm back after one my longer absences from posting.  If you aren't family or interested in our ski trip, you can probably skip this one!  Back to gaming in a few.

Julie, Jacob, Matthew, and I flew down to Reno two weekends ago to join Julie's two brothers and sister for a short ski week at Tahoe.  Two years ago we stayed in south Tahoe for a week and skied Heavenly, Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows, Kirkwood, and Northstar.  We enjoyed Northstar so much on that trip that we decided to stay there for the whole week this time.  Northstar has a great mid-week package at their village that gives two daily lift tickets for each room occupied, so it was also very affordable.

Conditions on day 1 were great.  The snow wasn't very fresh, but the weather was fairly warm and the sky was clear.  We hung together as a group for most of the morning.  After lunch, Mike, Dave and I headed to the back side for some harder skiing.

In the afternoon our (lack of) conditioning became very apparent.  The back side is where Northstar shines.  This is where the bulk of the black diamonds are; not as difficult as many ski mountains, but plenty long and diverse enough terrain to keep things interesting.  Our favorite part of the back side are the groves of widely spaces trees.  Plenty of ungroomed powder and it forces more consistent turning.

After three or four hard runs we were pretty tired though, so we headed back to the condo for some r&r.

Much of the time back at the condo was spent reading, watching movies, and playing some lighter games.  Dave brought Call of Duty for Mike to try, so he spent much of his time immersed in that great first-person WWII game.

On Tuesday, Jacob, Matthew, Dave, and I decided to give snowboarding a try.  For Dave and I it had been 10 years (our trip to Steamboat) since our last attempt.  For Jacob and Matthew it was their first try.  They are both very strong skiers for their age, able to ski easier black diamonds and very comfortable on just about any blue slope.

Jacob and Matthew joined a youth lesson while Dave and I took an adult beginner lesson.  This turned out to be a mistake, since Dave and I picked up the basics very quickly and spent most of the class watching the instructor teach the other three how to slide and do basic edge turns.

The lessons lasted until about 12:45, so we had some lunch then decided to take the boys on their first lift (a bunny slope).  That went well so we got on the high speed quad to try a longer green run.  This turned out to be a mistake.  Matthew wasn't quite ready for such a long run, and he had some tough falls.  He tends to be pretty aggressive and got going a bit too fast a few times and couldn't keep his balance.  So after one run, Matthew was done so we took the gondola down and called it a day.

On Wednesday we started to get some serious snow.  Winds were strong, visibility was low, and snow was falling hard.  The mountain was about to get over four feet of snow over the next 36 hours.  In general this is a good thing, but while the snow is falling it make things challenging, especially with the kids.  Most of the group quit pretty early on Thursday, but Dave, Mike, and I spent some quality time on the back side in the new powder.  We got worn out quickly so retired around 2pm.

The snow was still falling hard on Thursday, and around 8:30am or so we headed to the bus stop to catch the shuttle.  The power had gone out in our condo about 15 minutes earlier, but we didn't really give it a second thought.  Turns out the power was down on the entire mountain, causing some transportation issues.  First, the shuttle didn't show up for about 40 minutes.  Second, the gondola was shut down indefinitely.  Finally, the backup lift wouldn't start operating for another 45 minutes or so.  Of course all of the mid-mountain lifts were running just fine.  Makes perfect sense.  Dave and Lisa had planned to take the day off anyway (with Matthew), and Jacob and Julie gave up after waiting for the gondola for a while.  The weather was getting colder and windier.  So it was down to just Mike and me.

Visibility was low again, but the skiing was fantastic.  The power issues prevented us from heading to the back side, but we had plenty of fun skiing the deep powder off the Vista lift.  I'm not a seasoned powder skier, and I don't have powder skis, but it was an adventure and I was able to work on my technique.  Fortunately I didn't lose any skis in the process.

Overall it was a great trip.  We managed to work in four plays of Bang! with the High Noon expansion, a few plays of Attribute, one game of Too Many Cooks, and a fun round of Electronic Catch Phrase. 

The AGoTOnline team and Fantasy Flight Games reached an agreement this week that will allow the online site to continue operations.  Games already in progress will continue, but no new games will be created until some changes to the implementation are made.

I'm thrilled that FFG worked constructively with the site maintainers to work out a reasonable solution for both parties.

The American International Toy Fair was held last weekend in New York City.  There are a few worthwhile reports to read on this event:

• Gamers Alliance
• GameFest

Mayfair Games issued a press release today announcing that Microsoft will publish an online version of Settlers of Catan as a premium game service at MSN Zone.  Overall I think this is a positive thing - more exposure means more publishers and potentially more (and better games).  I do worry about what this will do to some of the free online version such as Settlers 3D and BSW.

Update: Matthew Baldwin just posted a screenshot.

We welcomed a small crowd into our home again this weekend for some gaming on Sunday.  Gameplay lasted from about noon until 8:30pm, and we were fortunate to once again host David Chapelle from Atlanta.

Checkers 2000

George was nice enough to bring by his copy of Checkers 2000, an interesting checkers variant that Julie and Matthew tried while the rest of us played Domaine.  Feedback was favorable on this game, and George is letting us borrow it for a while so I can play with each of the boys.  Matthew beat Julie, with the fatal blow being a late game triple jump.

Domaine

DavidE, George, Jacob, and I quickly jumped into a game of Domaine.  This was the first four-player game for me (I think any of us), and while George was familiar with Lowenherz (Domaine's ancestor) he had not yet tried Domaine.  So David and I quickly explained the rules while we setup and we launched into the game.

Play proceeded quickly - we finished the game in about exactly an hour.  George was a bit too slow in getting his first domain (and therefore any income source), and Jacob was immediately put into a defensive position with his valuable domain which caused him to neglect his other castles.  So it was mostly a raise between David and me.  As the game drew to an end, David pulled ahead with some strong expansions into my territory (pulling me down and pushing him up).  He got too far ahead for me to catch him though it was a fairly close finish.

Royal Turf

As the others arrived, KC put together a game of Royal Turf, joined by Chuck, Matthew, Julie, Mike, and DavidC.  Julie was the big winner.

Coloretto

DavidE, Jacob, DavidC, and Mike played Coloretto. I'm fairly certain DavidE won (since he has something like a 15 game winning streak in multi-player games!).  His feedback on the game itself isn't too favorable though:

I think there are other quick & light fillers that are more intellectually rewarding: Zircus Floheati (or whatever it's called); Money; Loco!; Katzenjammer Blues. Oh yeah, those are all by Knizia... Still, if others wanted to play this while waiting for other gamers to arrive, I wouldn't outright protest.

Attika

DavidE, DavidC, and Mike then squared off for a game of Attika.  This is one of my favorite newer games so I'm sorry I missed out on this one.  From what I saw, the game ended pretty quickly with a temple-to-temple victory.  It will be interesting to see how this game changes as players get more experienced in blocking this sort of victory.

New Eden 2

DavidE requested to play another game of New Eden 2, the wonderful new prototype from KC Humphrey.  I'm sure KC loves hearing someone ask for his game by name, but he deserves the recognition for the good work he is doing.

Princes of the Renaissance

A few folks were interested in trying out this Martin Wallace game, and since I had played once I offered to teach it.  Chuck had also played this once.

In this case, we had a serious problem with a runaway leader (George).  George accumulated a combination of tiles that gave him a 3-point discount when bidding on the condotierrie role.  This meant that he was able to fight in nearly every battle, often winning because of his troop strength.  He accumulated 6 (!) laurels by the end of the game, netting him an extra 20 victory points.  This was more than enough to secure his victory - a well played game by George.  I suspect if the rest of us had been a bit more alert we could have prevented it, but by the end of the 1st age most of us were predicting him as the winner.

El Grande

I was disappointed to miss this game, but I offered to teach Volldampf instead (I love that game too).  Apparently, via some skillful negotiation, DavidE was able to pull out the victory.

Volldampf

I taught George, Julie, Matthew, and Chuck the train transportation game of Volldampf, another Martin Wallace classic.  This game is similar in many ways to its descendent Age of Steam, but offers simpler mechanics and shorter gameplay.

Matthew had a challenging time understanding the mechanics - this is probably too much game for him.  It also made him very susceptible to coaching, and since he took such a liking to Chuck he started working to find routes that benefitted Chuck as well as himself.

With five players, each player will place a maximum of only 8 tracks, and during each turn only two can be placed.  I'm not wild about the game with this many people - the two-track limitation slows down income production and reduces the number of options.

I was way behind for the first few turns, but staged a strong comeback.  My debt situation prevented me from being a serious contender though, and Julie pulled out a 1 point victory over Chuck.

Crokinole

We pulled out our $10 Amazon special crokinole board for some finger-flicking fun.

Vector Prime

Jacob taught George and DavidE his Star Wars themed prototype named Vector Prime.  This game is similar to Star Wars: Epic Duels, with some card and dice-driven combat.  Jacob hand-made the components and is a great first attempt for him.  I appreciate the attention David and George gave to his game, including some valuable feedback.

Ark of the Covenant

We had a hard time settling on a game to play, and a couple of folks wanted to see Ark of the Covenant, the Inspiration Games release in the Carcassonne family.  This is just Carcassonne with a few twists thrown in, not unlike the various expansions released over the past few years.  Carcassonne is a great game with 2-3 players, but with 5 there is way too much downtime and chaos for my liking.  Oh, and DavidE won (again!) with me about 5 points behind in second place.

Titan: the Arena

I asked to play this game, having heard so much praise and knowing that there is a re-release coming from Fantasy Flight Games.  These guys were obviously pros, but were fairly kind during this learning game.  This is a very enjoyable game and I look forward to seeing the new release. 

Pizzza

The evening ended with KC teaching my family another of his recent prototypes.  Pizzza (I hope I included the correct number of Zs) is an easy to learn family game with simple mechanics.  Everybody enjoyed it - Matthew even gave it a '9'!  There is a tile laying and connection mechanic similar to New Eden 2.  My only suggestion is to improve the artwork a bit to make it easier to distinguish the different ingredients, and to make scoring markers that better align with the ingredients.  Another winner from KC!

After spending 4 hours this morning at Beaverton Toyota getting my car worked on (regular maintenance plus some repairs from vandalism at the Portland airport), I joined Jacob and Matthew at the Rude household for Brandon's birthday.  No photos from that event, though I do have one from our evening play of Vanished Planet.

Trias

Ken and I played the two-player variant of Trias, the game of plate tectonics and dinosaur migration.  There have been some complaints about the theme of this game, claiming that it is too dry or abstract.  I love the theme!  I can visualize the continents forming and the dinosaurs migrating (and swimming).  This game plays better with more than two, but we had a good time and a very close finish with my just edging Ken out.

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers

This is now my favorite version of Carcassonne.  I like the scoring in this as there appears to be more equity between the rivers and forests (as opposed to the roads and castles in the original).  The addition of the bonus tiles adds a fun dynamic.  This was a close game as well, with me beating Ken by less than 10 points in a 120+ point game.

Coloretto

Ken, Tracey, and I played a single hand of Coloretto, with Ken winning the hand with 37 points.

Vanished Planet

Jacob, Matthew, and I broke out my new copy of Vanished Planet.  Feedback on this cooperative game has been very mixed, but it is a winner in our house.  The boys absolutely love the theme, and cooperative games are a great family activity (especially in a competitive household like ours).

Ok, round 2 of trying to make this post.  As much as I like dasBlog, the browser based editor can drive me nuts.  I was 90% through this session report when I accidently clicked the back button, losing all of the content.  I'm sure I'll write this much more eloquently the second time around.  Greg Hughes gave me some good tips on using Outlook to compose and post directly into dasBlog, so maybe I'll start using that.

Last Thursday I joined the RipCityGamers for Die Hard Thursday - so named because it is usually a smaller turnout.  Not so this week - there were 8 of us, including our guest David Chapelle from Atlanta.

New England

Half of us split out for a game of New England, one of my favorites.  David, Doug, George and I tried to be the most successful pilgrim on Plymouth Rock. David had never played it but picked up the mechanics quick enough to make a very decent showing. With four players things are pretty tight - many more opportunities to conflict with other players than in the three player game. It was a balanced game that came down to the last round.  Three of us were tied for the barn majority (I already had the most pilgrims), and turn order played to my favor as I was able to grab the 10 spot and go first, grabbing the last available barn.  This was a substantial point swing and allowed me to the game with 31 points. David came in second with 28 points and Doug edged George out in the tie breaker at 26 points. If the turn order had been different, or if George was able to take the 10 spot (he had only 8 shillings), it would have been even closer.

Maya

I still haven't played this game, but DavidE gave a brief report:

The buzz on Maya is that it's a blend of familiar mechanisms with a fairly pleasant outcome. As blind bidding was one of those mechanisms, it probably will never make it into the common rotation, but it was definitely decent.

Cronberg

This is a game I had never seen nor even heard of.  Feedback was favorable though, with George reporting:

Peter taught this little game to Doug and I. Simple rules, simple concept, but not so simple to master. doug and I made the rookie mistake of placing lots of tiles early in the game only to give Peter good spots to put his men down. Very lopsided scoring was the result.

Luckily this game plays very quickly. Including teaching it took us 15 minutes to complete our first game so we gave it another go. This time Doug and I knew better than to place tiles early on which resulted in a final score of 44, 45, 56.

New Eden 2

Next was an opportunity for a few of us to play KC's latest prototype New Eden 2, the successor to the game New Eden (mentioned before right here). New Eden 2 is a very different game, with only the theme in common with its predecessor.  Think of this game as a zoom-in on one the hexes in New Eden.

New Eden 2 is essentially a tile laying game where players are trying to build roads of a sufficient length to allow them to build buildings.  Each building consists of two colors, and each player has a hidden goal of two colors that he is trying to build (important but not critical - it just gives bonus points for each building containing those special colors). This game borrows from mechanics in a number of games I've played, including Carcassonne, Attika, and TransAmerica.  But don't get me wrong - this is a very unique, fun game to play.  It certainly doesn't feel like a prototype since the bits were all very high quality.

DavidE and I were in the lead most of the game, partly because we joined roads early on and were able to build off of each other fairly regularly. DavidE pulled out the victory in the end, with me a close second.

DavidE had some high praise of the game (including some valuable feedback for KC):

...it is definitely Thumbs Up, and, in my opinion, perfectly publishable as it is, and as good as any mid-weight game released in the past year. Sure, you could tweak a subsystem here or there just for kicks, but dammit this game should be in print!

I tend to agree with David on this point - this game doesn't need much more work and it is certainly better than a number of games I played over the past six months.  Nice work KC!

Just an FYI - my MSN handle is brookscl_97140 at hotmail.com.