We invited the Humphrey and Rude families out to Salishan for an extended weekend of fun and games. This was our first test of the house for a large group of guests, and it went extremely well.  We had a total of 13 people staying at the house and pretty much everyone was able to sleep on a bed in relative privacy (with their own family).  Jacob and Matthew camped out on the floor in the master bedroom - we need to fix this next time as that's rather uncomfortable.

We had mixed weather over the Thu-Sun extended weekend - Thu and Sun were nice, but Fri/Sat were mostly rain with frequent high winds.  Interleaved with the gaming at the house were frequent trips to the Salishan Lodge swimming pool, beach walks, a trip to the batting cages / miniature golf / arcade, a tidepool hike, and a beach football game.

The rest of the story I'll tell with photos...

Jacob and Matthew brought out Magic decks early on, and this would prove to be a constant activity over the weekend.

The women break out the fine Buyword game on the first night.  I don't think it was well received.

Josh, KC, Ken, and I played Boomtown the first night.  Josh crushed us, but it was a learning game for everyone but me.  There's a strong luck factor to the game, but it is fun.

Julie and Justin play their first game of speed.  They would play a total of 28 over the weekend, splitting the match 14-14.

KC, Ken, and I play one of my favorites - New England.  KC pulled out a narrow victory.

I planned a few special events over the weekend, the first being a Texas Hold'em tournament with prizes for first, second, and last place.  Everyone got involved and had a great time. Rita won the last place prize (Kill Dr. Lucky) and earned the right to deal for the rest of the tourney.  Chelsea took second, winning Oceania for the Rude family.  KC was the tournament champion, winning the two-player game Jambo.

After the poker tournament the adults sat down for a rousing game of Schrille Stille.

Now it is New Year's Eve (Friday), and the day starts off with some two-player gaming.  I taught KC and Rita their new game Jambo - I think they like it a lot.

All of Friday afternoon was spent playing a 5-player game of the great trading card game 7th Sea. This a great multi-player CCG, its main detractor being the extraordinary amount of downtime when two players are resolving a boarding attack.  Josh cut out early to join the other kids, but the adults hung in till near the end - we had an early dinner and had to call it short.  Rita, Ken, and I were all in and strong when we called it quits.

The special event for New Year's Eve was a sealed deck Magic tournament with tournament packs from Mirrodin and boosters from Darksteel.  This is by far my favorite tournament format.  I ran it swiss-style and we had 8 players.  Ken and I were neck and neck throughout the tournament, but in my second to last match Matthew pulled out a draw (we played two games per match), putting me a half point behind Ken going into the final match.  This meant I had to to win both games to win the tournament, while Ken only needed a draw, which he was able to achieve.

After the Magic tourney we played a 3-on-3 game of Magic general, which is a special format where each team has a general with a lieutenant on his right and left flank.  Ken and I squared off as the two generals - I had KC on my left flank.

Ken had Matthew on his right flank and won the match.

On Saturday morning the Humphreys brought out Rumis, an abstract building/block laying game that we gave them for Christmas.  The game plays quickly and I like the variations that are built into the game.

Julie plays some solitaire while Ken and Tracy play a game of Settlers of Catan: the Card Game.

Saturday afternoon KC brought out a game I hadn't heard of: VOC!. We played the basic game, which I think is meant to teach the core mechanic of the game: tracing a shipping route on a wet erase board with your eyes closed, trying to avoid land masses and arrive at ports! Players work together to give advice based on the number of sailors they have on the player's ship.  Big score in creativity, but the game play itself was very lacking.  KC and I read ahead into the advanced rules, which brings a much better strategic element and trading process to the game.  I look forward to trying it again.

I picked up Santa Fe Rails last month at a sale at GMT Games.  This game has real promise - in hindsight, we all agreed we placed way too little emphasis on city cards, forcing a premature ending to the game as we built out all of the major lines quickly.  In fact, non of the short lines ever came up.  I'll be playing this again soon and will give a report.

I taught Chelsea, Ken, and Tracy one of my favorite games for kids: O Zoo Le Mio.  I think the Rudes really liked it, especially Chelsea (maybe because she won?).

The final evening consisted of an Apples to Apples game, a draft Magic tournament, and a little more poker.

I expect to try this again next year - I can't think of a better (or safer) way to spend the New Year celebration.  This was also a good warm-up for a gaming event I'll be holding out at the coast towards the end of January.

Mark Johnson poses the question “what's right for 2005?” in terms of year-end reports (games played, 5/10 reports, etc.).  I don't know either, but I can say this: my inbox is filled (well, not exactly as I used gmail to auto-archive and label them) with 117 unread spielfrieks messages that are mostly end of year reports that I probably won't ever read.  I also decided not to track my games played this year - that quantitative summary isn't very useful to me.  I prefer to rely on a subjective retrospective.

I am a fan of the aggregated 5/10 summary reports that should be coming out soon so that I can see broad trends (other than the fact that, surprise surprise, a lot of people were playing Ticket to Ride last year).  The problem, however, with the aggregated report is that you lose some of the value of the individual reports where you might find tidbits of surprise.

Looking back on 2004, what games do I subjectively recall playing a lot?  Here goes:

• Memoir '44 - at least 10 of these plays were at GenCon teaching others on behalf of Days of Wonder.  Even with that I played the game around 20 times I suspect.
• St. Petersburg - fun, easy to learn, great depth/time played ratio.
• San Juan - same comments as St. Pete.
• Acquire and Union Pacific stick out in my head not because I played them a lot, but because I played each about 3-4 times and would love to play them even more next year.
• Magic: the Gathering - still, in my book, one the best games ever designed.  And yes, you can play this game without taking out a second mortgage.
• Havoc, Pizzza, NW Trek, and Tres Amigos - KC Humphrey designs that I played frequently for a good reason (we are likely to publish one of these in 2005).
• O Zoo Le Mio - I think this is the best gateway game for kids ages 6-10 and I expect to see it come out even more frequently in 2005.

Beyond this list there are probably 50 or more games that I played once or twice.  There's good and bad in this approach, but mostly I love learning new stuff and surveying the landscape.  If it happens again next year that will be fine, though I'd like to explore a few games with depth and play them 5-10 times.

My unplayed but owned list isn't all that big any more.  I hope to play all of these in 2005:

• War of the Ring - Played 2 turns with Jacob, so we have a decent handle on the rules.  Time to play it through.
• Europe Engulfed - Played 1 or 2 turns in an aborted email game with Doug Walker (sorry Doug).  I need to reserve a 12 hour day to play this through face-to-face.
• 1830 -Considered one of the best of the 18xx games, and I haven't played any of them yet.
• Iron Dragon
• Silverton

A while back I talked about some of my musical interests.  This post prompted some helpful comments that pointed me to some other artists.  Here are some thoughts on stuff I've been listening to lately.

• Jeff - thanks for the pointer to Josh Rouse's 1972.  I love this album - right up my alley.  The retro sound makes it such a period piece - perfect when mixed in with some Neil Young and Carole King from 1972.
• Mike - thanks for the pointer to Iron & Wine.  Great stuff.  Not as wild about Neko Case, but she's growing on me.
• After reading Wilco: Learning How to Die I was compelled to revisit all of Wilco's catalog plus Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt.  Wilco gets better and better with age- I would say they are underrated but I think most people rate them pretty highly.  At least those that know who they are; all 300,000 of us or so.  I also picked up the Mermaid Avenue collaborations with Billy Bragg - their take on a collection of Woodie Guthrie's unrecorded lyrics.  I also watched I Am Trying to Break Your Heart for the second time while waiting in the Miami airport to return after the cruise.
• Brian Wilson's Smile.  I feel like I stepped into a time machine - it is amazing being able to pick this CD up and listen to it for the first time.  Was this what it was like hearing Pet Sounds after its original release?
• Neil Young's Tonight's the Night.
• Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska.
• Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde.

My friends Mike Deans and Eric Landes recently unveiled their weblogs.  Check 'em out.

These past two weeks have been rather odd for me.  First, I usually take around 10 days of vacation around Christmas and New Years.  In fact, I can't remember the last time I worked the week in between Christmas and New Years.  Because we did the cruise earlier in the month, I decided to work three days both weeks.  This included today, which is my birthday (I'm 0x25 this year).  Second, Julie and the boys have been camped out at Salishan for over a week, so I've had to take care of myself at home which is a frightening prospect.  Fortunately I've managed to avoid cooking and any serious home maintenance, though I did do a bit of shower repair this afternoon.

Yesterday Mike Deans held his second annual “first Monday after Christmas game day”.  I worked a little more than a half day and arrived at Mike's around 1:30pm.  Chuck, Dave, Doug, and Mike were getting ready to begin a game of Air Baron, the Avalon Hill game of airline travel control.  I hadn't heard of the game before but decided to jump in and take the fifth seat.

Chuck, Dave, and Mike contemplate their next moves in Air Baron.

This game has a very euro feel to it for a 90s Avalon Hill game, though there certainly is a decent amount of luck.  The basic idea of the game is that players purchase control of routes from airline hubs (places I'm all too familiar with such as ORD, DIA, DFW, LAX, etc.) to cities served by the hubs.  Some hubs are very valuable (like ORD), while others are less so.  As routes are purchased by players, chits for those routes are thrown in the “hopper” along with chits for the hubs and a few other random event chits.  At the start of each player's turn, two chits are drawn.  If a route is drawn, that player gets a payoff equal to the original cost of the route.  If a hub is drawn, all players controlling routes into that hub get a payoff.  If a player controls a hub by having a majority of the routes into a hub (or even better, controlling all routes into a hub), then the payoff is even greater.  There are a few other mechanics to the game, but that's the basic idea.

Player interaction comes into play as players attempt to takeover unclaimed routes or those owned by others.  Takeovers are the only way players can acquire more than one route in a given turn and they become quite frequent after the initial route-grab phase of the game completes.  The goal of the game is to achieve a certain level of market share, which is determined by hubs that are controlled by a player and the cash on hand.

Doug had some interesting comments in his writeup of the session:

... the game definitely has a rich-get-richer feel, and had I been on the poorer end of the scale in my last two games, I would probably have enjoyed the experience less, perhaps much less. As it was, I was happy to have our game end when it did, perhaps two or three turns sooner would have been even better even had it not been me.

I tend to agree with Doug in that I felt that for most of the game I was out of contention and just trying to play spoiler.  The luck of the roll (when doing takeovers) or the draw (if some of your big routes, particular internationals) can certainly swing things quickly though, and there was tremendous tension towards the end of the game.  Chuck was within 1 point of winning the game (out of 320 I believe) but couldn't quite pull it out; Doug pulled out a victory a turn or two later.

Not a great game but certainly a very good game, and one I would certainly play again.

Next up was Die Sieben Siegal, the innovative trick taking card game that I first played last year down in New Orleans.  I had been eager to play this one again - it reminds me of spades, a game I played frequently growing up, though Die Sieben Siegel requires much better precision in bidding.  The game was close, but I believe Mike came away with the victory edging out Dave.

Chuck had 90 minutes or so before he needed to leave, so we brought out Alhambra.  This game confuses me.  It feels like it plays on auto pilot and is mostly a luckfest (I'm sure there are strong players out there that win consistently, but it still feels that way to me) but I always enjoy the ride.

KC, Chuck, Ken, and I lay out our patio furniture in Alhambra.

Chuck played a strong game, building a very long city (chitty?) wall and winning by a healthy margin.

Dave, KC, and Rita played Stephenson's Rocket.  I've never seen this game though I've read about it quite a bit.

Mike suggested Industria, and I wanted to give it another try after my first ho-hum encounter with it at Gamestorm this year.  This is a thinking game, and I must give credit to the graphic designer - I think the game is a pleasure to look at.  I think the game is lacking a plot line - there's no real phasing of the game, no climax.  Each round feels about the same, you do your best, then you see what the score is at the end.  It was a fun ride, but given the same amount of time I would rather play the much better Power Grid.

Ken, Mike, and I played Industria.

I focused on getting bonus points from linkages and didn't pursue any of the special tile marker bonuses.  Turned out to be a decent strategy as I won the game.  Somehow I ended up with a pile of money towards the end, allowing me to bribe Mike into selling me a tech tile that gave me two more linkages.  I think I would have won the game anyway, but it was fun seeing him sell it for 7 while Ken's ears turned red.

Tonight I was facing an evening at home alone on my birthday (we'll celebrate tomorrow night out at Salishan), but a call mid-day from Ken made my day - the Rudes invited me over for dinner.  Ken, Brandon, and I were planning on getting together for some gaming tonight anyway, but the added surprise of dinner and desert was a very kind gesture on their part.  Ken is an OSU alumnus, so was as eager as I to watch the Insight Bowl while gaming - the Beavers handed Notre Dame another crushing bowl defeat, so all is good in the sports world for me right now.  All I need is for Iowa to win on Saturday, the Colts to win the Superbowl, and the Pacers to rebound and win the NBA.  I'll be happy with 2 out of 3.

Ken requested Entdecker, the exploration game designed by Klaus Teuber.  I've had this game for a while but hadn't played yet.

Brandon, Ken, and I explore the great unknown seas in Entdecker.  This game has an awesome scoring track (the serpent on the top of the board).

This game has a lot of similarities to the Carcassonne series, though is quite a bit deeper (and longer).  Unfortunately we played incorrectly: 2/3 of the way through the game, Ken mentioned that we forgot the toll-paying rule when you explore along a route that passes through a tile with a player marker on it.  I doubt the outcome would have changed (Ken crushed us, and I finished last), but the money dynamic early in the game certainly would have been different.

I made the mistake of not get enough completed smaller islands early in the game, and I was very under-represented in the villager tracks competing for the end-game prizes.  Ken had a very lucky draw at the end that took away a majority on a large bonus-tile island that gave him the runaway lead.  Had a I won it the game would have been a bit closer, but Ken had the game in the bag.  I definitely want to play this one again and will try and get it out this weekend.

I work my last day this week tomorrow then head out to Salishan to rejoin the family.  The Rudes and the Humphreys will join us out there for an extended New Years celebration weekend.  There will be a decent amount of gaming so I'll try and post as the weekend goes by.

Taken about 4:39pm off Highway 101.

Merry Christmas to all! The weather has turned for the worse today - high winds, rain, and so much fog we can barely see across the bay.  We've had a wonderful Christmas here so far and are presently huddled up watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (one of several DVD gifts exchanged this year, the others being Return of the King extended version, Grease [widescreen edition], and of course Dodgeball).

We may very well stay inside for the day, though a beach walk in this extreme weather might be a fun diversion.  Wherever you may be, best wishes to you and may the spirit of the holidays fill your life with joy.

It's Christmas Eve and I finally have a few spare moments to post some pictures and a narrative of our recent Caribbean cruise on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas.  We'll be back to run-of-the-mill gaming postings before you know it.

Earlier this year I reached out to our extended family to see what the interest might be in a family cruise around Christmas as a way to get everyone together without the burden of one family hosting.  It was also an opportunity to get my side of the family together with Julie's.  My parents, Julie's mom & stepdad, and Julie's brother David and his wife Lisa all decided to participate.

Julie, Jacob, Matthew, brother Dave, and sister Lisa shortly after boarding the Voyager.  You can see another smaller ship in the background - we are still in port.

I was eager to give cruising another shot.  We did a Disney Cruise back in 2000 (4 days at Disney World, 3 days at sea) and weren't terribly impressed, especially considering the cost.  My parents cruise quite a bit a think highly of Royal Caribbean, and the Voyager class ships have a lot to offer kids.  It is hard to describe how massive these ships are, though it does help to see them alongside other ships in port.

I took this picture of the Navigator of the Seas leaving port ahead of us, which is virtually identical to our ship.  Fully loaded with passengers and crew, this ship tops out at around 4,500 passengers.

We opted to pay a bit more for rooms with outward facing balconies on the 9th deck (there are 15 decks in all on this ship).  Jacob and I tend towards sea sickness so being able to breath fresh air, see the horizon, etc. were very helpful.  Quarters are definitely cramped with all four us together in a cabin, and Julie and I both wonder how much longer we'll be comfortable sharing a room with both boys.

Jacob and I enjoy a game of Fluxx on our balcony.

The service and food were outstanding - I'm convinced our Disney Cruise experience was an abberation.  We ate breakfast most mornings at the Windjammer Cafe buffet - they have the most flexible hours and we were often off to an early (7am) start to get onshore to our current port.  Dinner was at 6pm sharp each evening in the impressive 3-story dining room (there's one each fore and aft).  There were two scheduled formal nights, though for the second one we opted for dinner at Portofino's. This is their extra charge but nicer offering and it was well worth the added expense.  We left the kids in Adventure Ocean, the kids program, where they had dinner at Johnny Rockets, a 50's style dinner serving burgers, shakes, fries, and onion rings.

Our dinner table on one of the more casual evenings.

Matthew loved putting on a tie at night, choosing to wear it on even the casual evenings. The entertainment was better than I expected.  My two favorites were Beatlemania, one of many Beatles tribute acts roaming the planet, and the ice show.  Yes, an ice show on a cruise ship that was as good as anything I've seen in a full-fledged arena or on TV.  The low point entertainment-wise was a comedian who probably hadn't updated his material in 15 years - he continually poked fun at these new-fangled music groups like the Beastie Boys and Hootie and the Blowfish. 

The lovely ladies enjoying some free drinks on the promenade.

We had mixed experiences onshore at the various ports.  I refuse to pay $200 to let someone drive me to a beach and show me how to snorkel, so I planned out all of our self-led excursions ahead of time.  Our first stop was Nassau, the Bahamas, and unfortunately we encountered fairly high northerly winds (20-30 knots) which didn't make for the best beach weather.  We caught a taxi over to Paradise Island and hiked for about 30 minutes to a decent area for some snorkeling.   Jacob saw a stingray and we saw a few fish and crabs but overall the snorkeling was poor.  The beach hike was fun though and the scenery beautiful.

St. Thomas was the highlight for the week.  After arriving in port, we caught a cab to Red Hook where we booked passage on a ferry to St. John for some snorkeling.  On St. John we caught a taxi to Trunk Bay, a magnificent white sand crescent beach with fabulous snorkeling.  There's actually an underwater trail you can follow with sign-posts describing the reef, fish, and other characteristics of the bay.

A view of the bay in St. Thomas before our departure.

We took a lot of pictures underwater with a disposable camera, so once I develop those I'll post a few shots.  We saw a wide range of critters, including a moray eel, angels, parrot fish, brain coral, and more.  The weather was perfect and we all had plenty of time to just relax and enjoy the beach.

Our next stop was San Juan, Puerto Rico.  We had limited time in port (7:30am - 1:30pm), but based on some research I did I thought we would have time to explore El Yunque, the rainforest outside of San Juan.  Rather than cab it, I opted to rent vehicles and drive ourselves.  The plan was OK, but the execution less than perfect.  First, the car rental office we used near port took over 90 minutes to get our cars to us.  Second, traffic was horrendous, and it took us over 90 minutes to get to El Yunque.  You can do the math for yourself - we ended up with about 30 minutes in total to explore.  Next time, given the limited time in port, I would probably just explore Old San Juan.

Look kids, El Yunque.  Quick, get back in the car and stop crying - we need to get back to the ship.

Our final port was to be Labadee, the port/beach that Royal Caribbean leases in Haiti.  This should have been a fun final shore trip (kids water play area, snorkeling, beach bbq), but unfortunately the seas were two high to operate the tender service to get us onshore.  The captain informed us early morning that we would not be able to visit and that we should plan on enjoying another sea day.  Bummer, but this is one of the risks you take doing a cruise in December.

This is the tender used at Labadee.  We hooked up to exchange some people and goods.  Here you can see them transferring Christmas trees from the Voyager to the tender.

Our sea days were spent exploring the ship, participating in art auctions, and after we discovered it, playing shuffleboard.

Jacob and I playing shuffleboard late one evening

The interior of the ship is impressive.  The promenade is an open shopping and entertainment area that feels like a narrow city street.  Below the promenade is the ship's casino that we walked through several times but never stopped for any gaming.  We did participate in every trivia contest we could find though, winning at least two of the competitions.

The promenade at the center of the ship.

I would definitely recommend Royal Caribbean and the Voyager line of ships.  It certainly doesn't have an intimate feel, but I was surprised at the quality of service they are able to provide to search a large group of people.  Perhaps this will become a regular event for us every two years or so.

Typical dinner attire for the boys.  Matthew, where's your lanyard?!

I've got free broadband access in my hotel room here in downtown Miami.  We head over to the ship in about an hour, so hey, why not squeeze in one more post before we take off.

Rather than wake up at 3am on Friday morning and make the 40 minute drive to the airport for our 6am flight, we opted to take advantage of a hotel/parking package near the airport.  For about the same cost as 9 days of parking in economy, we got a room and free parking at the Staybridge Suites and got to sleep in an extra hour or so.  Great idea if you don't live close to the airport and will be gone for more than a week.

Jacob, Julie, and Matthew after our arrival in Miami.

We arrived in Miami around 4pm yesterday.  I used some upgrade certificates to bump Julie to first class, which was a new experience for her.  She hardly took advantage of it, skipping the meal on the Denver-Miami leg and not consuming any free alcohol.  The extra elbow room was appreciate I'm sure.

The view of the port and our ship from our hotel room.  That's the Voyager of the Seas on the left.  The ship is huge - 138,000 tons supporting over 3,000 guests.

This morning we had breakfast with the entire family contingent - my parents, Julie's mom and step dad, and Julie's brother Dave and his wife Lisa.  We are meeting at 10:30 this morning to catch a van to the port for what we hope will be an early boarding.

I've got a huge backlog of things to post, but my hosting ISP had my home blocked out in their firewall so the whole world has been able to see my site but not me.

We leave tomorrow on a family vacation in the Caribbean.  I might have access while away, but most likely you won't see any new material until Dec 19.

One note: I've been having a BLAST playing on BSW with the kids.  Last week I was out east on a business trip and arranged a “play date” with the kids on BSW.  We hooked up and played TransAmerica for about 45 minutes.  Since then we've also played Power Grid, St. Petersburg, and Lost Cities.  I love the BSW Power Grid implementation - probably the best I've seen there.