BoardGameSearch is a useful site for searching prices for online games.  This is a good start, but I want more (actually, my friend George wants more and I agree with him): scrape the sites rather than frame them in, then present the prices in a list.  Sort of a Froogle for board games.  Froogle already does a decent job here, but it needs to index more retailers.

I know these are SO scarce these days, but let me know if you'd like a gmail invitation.  Please leave a comment here with your first and last name and email address.  Oh, and tell me what your favorite board game is.

There are a few good deals out there that are worth looking into:

• ToysRUs is still offering Roller Coaster Tycoon for a paltry $5.97 plus shipping.  Well worth it.  You should probably stay away from Austin Powers Pictionary though.
• GameFest is running a blowout sale with some decent titles at some decent prices.  Some good deals include Adam & Eva and Amun Re.  Make sure you compare prices with Boards & Bits - they generally have the best prices on the web.

I recently organized a lunchtime gaming group at Corillian in our cafe.  A couple of us had met spontaneously for some gaming over the past year, but about a month ago I decided we had a critical mass of folks interested in playing regularly, so we are now meeting each Friday at 11:30-1pm.  Well, most of us: I'm traveling way too much recently, so missed this week and will miss the next two.  I'm glad folks are getting together without me though - this is a great way to get to know folks at work and expand the gaming community.

Two weeks ago we played San Juan and Colossal Arena (Dave was even able to join us).  It was great to see Paul spontaneously decide to sit down and join us - he's now a regular attendee.

This week I was away in NJ and OH, but the group met on Friday for some Ticket to Ride action.  Eric wrote up the results:

For those that couldn’t make it today, we brought out Ticket to Ride.  After I explained the game to Arron, Jason, and Paul, we dug in and started.  Arron was taking the early lead due to some longer connections.  Jason had the west coast mostly to himself, while the rest of us fought over the Midwest.  Oddly enough, there was hardly ANY activity on the eastern seaboard.

Paul started pulling in a LOT of tickets as the game progressed, while Arron focused on building track.  Jason and I mixed the two around a bit.  As the game neared completion, Arron and Jason were pulling out to a lead while I hung right behind with Paul bringing up the rear.  Finally Arron built down to his last train.  Paul gambled by taking tickets on his final turn – hoping for some free points.  Jason built a two segment track somewhere and I pulled of what turned out to be the game winning move by building from New Orleans to Miami on my final turn, completing a Los Angeles to Miami ticket in the process.

Final order was Eric, Arron, Jason, Paul, and the scores were rather spread (40 points or so).  However, the game was much closer than that, as had I not built that final section, I would have finished last and had Paul not gambled on the final turn, he would have been no worse than third.  Overall, the game lasted 90 minutes including instruction, so we’d easily be able to finish it in an hour in the future.

Everyone came out impressed with the game, Paul even suggesting he might exchange a couple recently purchased games for it.

This session report spans a week, but I'll but just put down all the stuff I've played at once.

We spent last weekend at Salishan doing some work on the house and getting it ready for some massive reflooring work scheduled the following week.  The weather wasn't great so we spent a good deal of time on Saturday indoors, and that meant games.  Nice not having a TV or computer handy...

First up was another playing of Robo Rally.  I spent some time coaching Matthew this time to ensure that he wouldn't make foolish mistakes programming his robot.  This game is hard enough without misunderstanding the orientation and movement rules of your robot!  Things went much better for him this time.  He can navigate OK himself, but still has some challenges anticipating others' moves and knowing how to hit the targets.

Jacob and Matthew at the end-game of Robo Rally.  You can see my robot just in front of Jacob's facing the final target.

Jacob was in the lead for most of the game, but I was able to catch up and pull just ahead of him going into the final stop.  If he had been able to keep himself facing me and then drawn a move 2 card the next turn, he could have won by pushing me past the target and landing on it himself.  He ended up the turn facing the wrong way, allowing me to capture the win with an easy move 1.

Next up was Colossal Arena, the remake of the Knizia classic Titan: the Arena. The kids had a great time with this one, with Jacob winning easily (I lost my secret bet on the first round!).  Everyone I've talked to agrees that the rule where the game ends immediately after the last card is drawn is B.S.  We prefer the original rules where you continue playing but with limited hands (i.e., no more draws).

Matthew and Jacob a few rounds into Colossal Arena.

Matthew had been asking to play Lord of the Rings: Risk for ages. I tend to resist due to the playing time (2-3 hours), but every time we get a chance to sit down and play we have a blast.  The game usually turns out about the same: Matthew goes down fairly quickly, Jacob holds his own against me for a while, and I end up controlling over half the board by the time the game ends.

Matthew and Jacob playing LOTR: Risk.  Matthew and I each played the dark side, Jacob took on the fellowship role.

My strategy is fairly simple.  Focus on taking control of an entire region within the first three turns, don't over-extend myself, and use my leaders effectively to continue gaining the bonus cards. One reason I love this version is the time control which virtually ensures that all players stay in the game the whole time.  This changes the focus away from player elimination and keeps it on winning points.

Today after seeing an afternoon movie, the boys and I pulled out Power Grid for our first ever play.  I sat down Saturday night to play a few turns solitaire and get the rules down.  This helped me come up to speed very quickly - much better than just reading the rules.

Matthew and Jacob near the end-game of Power Grid.

Both boys picked up the rules of the game fairly quickly.  Matthew initially had a hard time understanding the relationship between the power plants he owns and the cities he can power, and everyone was confused with the fiddly rules about the different stages, when to replace power plants in the auction, etc.  I think we got the rules right, but it sure is tough to keep it all straight.

Matthew spent most of the game in the lead.  Jacob focused on clean energy, at one point having three power plants that don't require raw materials.  I tried to pace myself and stay out of the lead but in striking distance.

I think we all bought power plants too often, as we never even had a stage 2.  Also, the 8 plants we removed from the game at the beginning (per the 3-player rules) were all high-output plants, making for an interesting end-game where there was a real scarcity of high-output plants.  The end was very close: I won with a total network of 16 cities and 20 electros, Matthew second with 16 cities and 13 electros, and Jacob third with 15 cities.  Fun game and we can't wait to play again.

Julie and I want to see a movie today, probably Shaun of the Dead, so we are looking for a movie for the boys to see at about the same time, at the same theater.  I always end up going back to Google to find sites that review the content of films (particularly PG and PG-13 films) for age-appropriateness.  Here are a few decent sites out there that I've checked out:

• Kids-in-Mind - Probably the most thorough out there, as it provides a great amount of narrative detail in addition to scoring the films on various dimensions (Sex & Nudity, Violence & Gore, Profanity).
• Grading the Movies - Uses a letter-grade scoring system on various dimensions (Overall, Violence, Sexual Content, Language, Drugs/Alcohol). This site gives a combination movie review and rating, dealing with a more subjective assessment than Kids-in-Mind.
• FamilyStyle - Hardly worth mentioning, this site scores films on various dimensions (Profanity, Nudity, Sex, Violence, Drugs/Alcohol) but provides very little commentary to back up the ratings.

We are contemplating whether or not the kids can see Mr. 3000 on their own.  Looks like there may be too much profanity and sexual content for our liking, so we may just opt out of Shaun of the Dead and see Hero together as a family.

Many folks into German- or European- or Family Strategy Games or whatever you call them these days played collectible card games in the 90s, especially the original classic Magic: the Gathering and other critical favorites like Legend of the Five Rings, Middle Earth: the Wizards, Doomtown, and my favorite 7th Sea.   I'm mostly disillusioned by the CCG market for the same reasons many others are: the tendency to buy way too many cards, get the latest expansion, get ahold of more rares to be competitive, and a lack of time for the “metagame”: deck construction.

Most of the CCG playing I've done in the past 5 years has been with starter decks or, preferably, pre-constructed theme decks.  This has mostly been with in print CCGs like Lord of the Rings, Magic, and A Game of Thrones CCG.  These games have great underlying systems and shouldn't be ignored just because of the collectible element.  Well, Lord of the Rings isn't such a great system, but you get my point.

The out-of-print games should not be ignored.  I've picked up quite a few 7th Sea cards on eBay for a song, and last night I found a cool deal on a set of Middle Earth: the Wizards challenge decks.  I bought a decent amount of METW when it first came out in 1995, but couldn't find folks to play (everyone was playing Magic).  I think these challenge decks could be a great way to give it another try for about the same price as a typical board game.

What other OOP CCGs are worth trying?

My friend and fellow RipCity gamer Dave Eggleston has a weblog (atom).  Dave is in the midst of an interesting project: developing some Windows-based (but they might run on Mono) versions of KC's games.  In the works right now is Tres Amigos.

Jacob and I gave the SpyCraft CCG a play while at the coast over the weekend.  We also played several other games - I'll post some pics shortly - but I wanted to give a few quick comments on this game.

I really wanted to like this, and thought it had some promise after getting a demo at GenCon.  Maybe I'm just getting spoiled playing euro-style games and their (generally) clear rules and quick learning curve, but I found this game very confusing to learn and explain.  There are certainly great thematic elements to this game and the artwork is good (but not great, especially relative to my favorites: Magic, A Game of Thrones, and 7th Sea).  The rules just didn't sit right with me.

I had the hardest time understanding when certain things could be done, what the always-available actions were during certain phases (e.g., you can always do a combat action during any style of mission, but not a transport action).  There are also a number of things that can be done by certain factions.  My opinion is that once you know the system of the game, you should be able to play it from the cards and not have to remember certain special actions.  What if in Magic, if you played black, you could do an automatic Drain Life each turn?  That would just be silly.

I'm probably being too hard on the game, and if I sat down with someone who was experienced to explain it to me I would probably grok it much more quickly, but I just don't have the patience.  Give me 7th Sea any time...