Uberplay Games was kind enough to send me copies of some of their newest releases to demonstrate at Game Storm in Portland on Sunday.  The demos went extremely well, with over 15 different individuals participating by playing some of Uberplay's newest titles (as well as at least one “oldie”).

Desert Oasis (at Uberplay)

This was certainly the most sought after title today, partly because it is one of Uberplay's bigger box releases, and partly because it is rumored to be the last collaboration between Alan Moon and Aaron Weissblum.  My first play with Jacob and Matthew last week was fun, but we played it incorrectly (we failed to give the bonus action to the player earning the first player slot).  Still, I was concerned at the time about how good this game would be with three players.

My concerns were confirmed by several others at Game Storm - this is not a great three player game due to some issues with the card offerings and selections each round.  Fortunately we were able to get in a four-player game and it was met with much enthusiasm.

In Desert Oasis, players acquire and play three different tile types: steppes, stony plains, and oasis.  These are played on the game board according to simple rules concerning adjacency and control.  For example, two players' set of oasis tiles may never touch orthogonally.  Players also place camels along the camel track, which divides the tile laying areas into three sections.

Players also collect and keep hidden scoring tiles in each of those four categories: yellow horses (steppes), grey oovos (stony plains), green water wells (oasis), and red commodities (camels).  At the end of the game, players score the sum of the products of the tiles/camels and their corresponding scoring tiles.  For example, if I controlled 10 oasis tiles and managed to collect 8 water well scoring tiles, I would score 80 points.  For the tiles it is possible (and likely) to control more than one area of a particular type (each player has four control markers, so will never control more than four discrete sets).  For camels/commodities, only the largest single chain of orthogonally connected camels are scored.

The most interesting part of the game is the way in which these resources are acquired.  There are cards that contain images of the different types of resources and scoring tiles, as well as a few cards that allow a player to draw more cards.  For example, there are some cards with a single oasis, some with a single water well tile, and some with two of each.  Each player holds a player order marker, distributed randomly at the start of the game.  Players start with five cards (players do not look at their cards, so they are stacked face-down) each, and the first player opens the game by turning over his top card.  This will constitute his offer to the other players - he will not get to choose this for himself.  If he only offers a single card, he draws two cards from the deck and places them at the bottom of his pile.  He may also choose to offer a second card, and in that case he will only replenish a single card.  Finally, he may choose to offer a third card and not get any cards for replenishment.  Each player in turn order repeats the same offer process.

Why offer more cards to your opponents?  You will usually want an opponent to take your offer over another because this will allow you to act earlier the following turn.  Let's say I'm player 4 this turn, and I make a sweet offer of three cards.  Player 1 likes my offer so takes it.  By doing so, player 1 also hands over his player marker to me (face down), allowing me to act first the following turn.  After all players have taken their actions in the current turn, as a bonus the player that earned first player status gets an additional action allowing him to place an additional tile or camel (this is rule Jacob, Matthew, and I missed in our first playing).  This is a very creative mechanism for resource allocation, but I do not think it works for three players.  Because a player cannot choose his own offer, the first player will always be forced to choose the second or third player's offer.  If the first player can always make a week offering and then choose the third player's offering, forcing the second player to take the first player's offering.  This strange dynamic led to offerings that were often very enemic and it didn't seem that the players would compete enough to get first position.  The offering mechanism worked extremely well with four players, however, and I suspect it would be even better with five.  One nice thing about this game is that it shouldn't take much longer for five players to play a game than with three.  The game plays very quickly and has almost zero downtime.

Tim, Mike Deans, Matthew, and I played the only four player game of the day.  Matthew looked somewhat disinterested in the game but must have been hustling us since he played very well.

There was quite a bit of competition for camels as you can see from the game board, and I (through no choice of my own - I rarely was given the option to take camels) managed to stay out of that fight and instead focused on a large patch of oasis.  This payed off in the end, and I pulled out a victory.  Final scores: Chris (121), Matthew (116), Mike (108), and Tim (107).  The game finished in just over an hour.

Tongiaki (at Uberplay)

Tongiaki has become one my favorite lighter three player games, so it was my pleasure to teach this to several groups today.  My first play of this game was on BSW, but I think it looks and plays much better in real life.  Each player plays a tribe in Polynesia set on sailing to new islands to escape overpopulation.

This is basically an exploration game with some really cool mechanics that trigger an escape from an island.  The land tiles have beaches with individual slots for catamarans (Tongiakis).  Once a beach fills up, the catamarans venture off into the sea.  Sometimes the sea is too treacherous and the boats will sink; other times the boats will successfully navigate to a new island.  The goal is to establish population on as many islands as possible.  Each island has a point value, and once all of the sea or land tiles have been used, players add up the scores for all islands where they reside (there are no majority rules for controls of islands).

Relationship Tightrope (at Uberplay)

This light cardgame is a remake of the 1999 Knizia game Drahtseilakt (Tightrope), lightly themed with the struggle of married couples to balance the needs of the man and woman.  This may seem like a dated theme in the Portland area, but yes, men and women do still get married.

I could easily see this game becoming one of my favorite light fillers.  The game is exceedingly simple: there are 50 cards numbered from 1 to 50, and each player is dealt 9 cards at random.  There are 9 relationship cards (numbered from 1 to 9) that are shuffled and turned over one at a time.  As each relationship card is revealed, players secretly choose a card from their hands to reveal and turn them over simultaneously.  The player with the highest number takes a number of blue balancing sticks equal to the number on the relationship card, and the player with the lowest number takes the same number of pink balancing sticks.  If a player is holding both blue and pink sticks, he counts how many of the lesser number of sticks he holds and discards them as well as an equivalent number of the other color.  For example, if a player holds 4 pink sticks and wins 6 blue sticks, he would be able to discard 4 pink and 4 blue sticks, leaving him with only 2 blue sticks.  He is now more in balance than he was before (4 to 2).  The goal, of course, is to finish the hand with zero sticks and be perfectly in balance.  There are also two instant forgiveness (one blue, one pink) cards in the relationship deck.  When these are turned over, the next card is revealsed and the blue or pink number (depending on which instant forgiveness was drawn) will not be awarded this hand.

There is a tremendous amount of luck in this game - players can be dealt fairly awful hands.  Still, I suspect there is a great deal of skill in playing the cards to maximize balance and I look forward to playing this one quite frequently.  In our game, Wes did the best job of balancing.  Final rankings were Wes (2), Matthew (5), Dave (8), Jacob (10), Chris (12).

New England (at Uberplay)

Chris requested on Friday night that I also bring over New England since he had been hoping to play this great game from 1993.  I tought four players how to play and they picked it up very quickly.

Arthur needed to leave just before the end of the game, but DaveE was nice enough to sit down in his place to finish it out and get a victory.  Final ranks were Arthur/Dave (35), Chris (33), Wes (33), and Jacob (27).

Alhambra (at Uberplay)

Towards the end of the day Wes requested a game of Alhambra.  Uberplay has not yet released their English language version, but were nice enough to provide the German language version for me.  I've played this a few times in real life and on BSW, so I taught the rules and let the three players play on their own.  I didn't capture final scores, but feedback on the game was unanimously positive.

The better of day 3 at Game Storm for me was my Uberplay Games demonstration session, which was supposed to last from nine until noon but actually lasted for most of the day.  I'll cover the details of the demos in my next report, but first I thought I would give a photo diary of the other activities of the day.

Or should I say evening 2?  The day was spent spending time with Matthew while Jacob and his team participated in the regional Destination Imagination tournament - they won!  Matthew had baseball tryouts mid-day, so I didn't arrive at Game Storm until about 8:00pm.  Dave was scheduled to host a late-night A Game of Thrones session, and we were a bit concerned that there would be too many players for a single game.  So I committed to bring my own copy and perhaps run a parallel game if necessary.  We ended up with 10 players so this worked out perfectly.

First a few photos from some of the other games happening on Saturday night.

Next it was time for A Game of Thrones!  As I mentioned, Dave ran one game and I ran the other.  In Dave's game (he didn't play), I believe Lannister pulled out the victory with Baratheon getting eliminated around turn 8 or 9.  Dave started explaining the rules around 9:15 and they were underway by 9:45.  Their game ended around 1:15 or 1:30.

My group was a bit slower getting assembled, so by the time I was done explaining the rules (with Kai's help) it was already after 10pm.  This was going to be a late night.

I played Lannister, KC played Tyrell.  The game opened with two rapid musters, so players quickly hit their supply limits.  We also saw two early Clash of Kings, but this did not change the order in any of the categories significantly.  KC played it slow and conservative, gradually working his way over to capture Sunspear for a valuable supply and muster point.  I was able to make a decent expansion into Harrenhal and Blackwater, so supply was not going to be an issue for me.  My navy certainly was though...

One of Lannister's biggest challenges is getting bullied around in the seas by Greyjoy, and this was no exception.  I made the mistake of investing a bit too little in my navy, allowing Greyjoy to eventually wipe out my navy.  Once this happens in A Game of Thrones, it is very unusual to see a navy come back.  Mine never did.

Greyjoy and I continued to harass each other, allowing Stark and Tyrell to gradually build up their support base and prepare for long-range sorties into our areas.  I nearly was eliminated from the game, but thanks to Tyrell interceding to push Greyjoy away from Lannisport, I was able to resurface and at least pester the other houses.

We all agreed to keep private diplomacy to a minimum in this game, so there was substantial table talk about alliances and threats.  I probably prefer the game to played this way, though certainly private discussions certainly fit better with the theme and make the game much more of a diplomatic effort.

This game was extremely close.  Going into the final round, Stark, Baratheon, and Tyrell were all in striking distance of victory.  The game ended on a somewhat sour note, however. Stark's final march order was an attack from Moat Cailin to Seagard which, if successful, would seal victory for Stark.  On a previous march order Stark had abandoned Winterfell (though of course it remained under his control) to capture another city.  Stark had superfluous units in the attack on Seagard, but marched with all of them still.  Greyjoy was forced to retreat, but was able to do so all the way back to Winterfell through the use of his western navy.  If Stark had just marched one his footmen to Winterfell in addition to the attack on Seagard he would have one the game.  The Stark player was pretty upset about this, claiming that he wasn't aware that that sort of retreat would be allowed.  Oh well, it was a fun game but a late night - we finished about 2am.

Today was day 1 for GameStorm in Portland, OR.  I had to get there by 4pm to hand deliver KC's New Eden prototype; I thought I gave myself plenty of travel time, but an accident on I-5 cut things close and I arrived just in time.  KC was just beginning to explain the rules to New Eden to a group of gamers eager to give it a try.  I added some commentary here and there and it appeared to come off without a hitch.

Meanwhile Mike Deans arrived so we decided to sit down and play.  First was an aborted attempt to play Oasis, but unfortunately we couldn't find a third player.  Fancy that happening at a gaming convention.  So we settled for Odin's Ravens, which I hadn't played before.  Fun game!  Clearly a bit luck driven, because I managed to beat Mike soundly.

While teaching New Eden, KC was spending some time mounting and preparing the bits for a new game prototype.  More about this later.

I was surprised at the amount of gaming already happening when I arrived at 4pm.  Dave and Doug were immersed in a series of Knizia games.  Apparently there is a Kniziathon tournament with weighted scoring (based on game complexity or length).

After a brief dinner with the gang, I sat down for a scheduled game of Industria, the relatively new Michael Schact game.  This has received some glowing reviews so I was eager to try it.  The art work and board design is very nice, and the game play was fun.  This is an auction game where players bid to win the right to build a building, upgrade a technology, or gain a resource.  There are a number of ways to gain victory points - some buildings have them inherently, tech upgrades, and bonuses.  Bonuses come in the form of linkages between purchases (based on adjacency - for example, there may be two linked upgrades that, if you managed to get both, would give you a three point bonus), or categories or buildings that give extra VPs.

Everyone missed a crucial rule that hurt me for one turn and may have put me in last place instead of third (heh): when a player acting as the auctioneer doesn't win an auction, they remain the auctioneer for the next item.  In one case, we passed the auctioneer on to the next player.  This can hurt quite a bit since it can deprive a player of income or a discounted building.  No big deal since this was a learning game.  There are a few things I didn't like about the game, mostly related to auctions with goods that were utterly worthless.  I would definitely play this again though.

KC and Jay ran a two-player swiss style tournament tonight, and I donated a few games to fill out their inventory and lurked for a while to help with the rules.

A wide range of games were played in the tournament, including Lost Cities, Odin's Ravens, and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation.

At the end of the evening KC taught George and I how to play his newest prototype, a fairly abstract name tentatively called Cairo after the style of tiles used in the game.  More about this game later, but it was very enjoyable to play.  Tactical, plenty of random elements, but genuinely fun.

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.