/(p[eu]rls of wisdom)?/

Martian Dice is a new game from Tasty Minstrel Games. It’s a quick push-your-luck filler, so good at the start of a gaming evening while waiting for more people to arrive, or at the end of an evening when there’s not much time left.

You are Martians, trying to abduct earthlings. You have 13 dice. 2 faces on each die are Death Rays, and then there’s one each of a tank, a chicken, a human and a cow.

When you roll, you are required to set aside any tanks. They are the earth military, trying to stop you abducting earthlings. You must then set aside at least one other die. When you decide which type of die to put aside, you must put aside all dice showing that same face. While you can always put aside Death Rays, adding to any you’ve put aside earlier, for each type of earthling, you can only set them aside once. So, if you’ve already set aside humans, you can’t set aside more humans.

You can either stop out of choice, or roll again, rolling the dice you haven’t yet set aside. You may be forced to stop if after setting aside tanks, you only have dice of an earthling type already set aside.

Once you are done with rolling, you then determine your score. Firstly, you must have at least as many death rays as tanks, or the earthly military has chased you away. If you don’t, you score nothing. If you do have sufficient force, you score one point for each earthling you abduct. If you manage to abduct at least one earthling of each type, you get a bonus 3 points.

It’s a silly but fun game, takes maybe 10 minutes to play, and it’s enjoyable to roll lots of dice.

8/10

Dominion: Hinterlands is the latest expansion for the ever popular Dominion card game. This introduces yet more cards, and the basic theme is “cards that do things when you buy or gain them”. I’m really looking forward to how they affect game play.

Glory to Rome is another card game. This one has been around a while, but a lot of people have issues with the art. There has been a recent new edition, known as the “Black Box” edition with all new art, made possible by Kickstarter, and now that’s the edition that I would like to have.

Crude is another game that’s been around a while. It was republished as McMulti some time back, and there’s some controversy in the history there, but Stronghold Games found the original designer of the game, and got the rights to republish it. It will have some rules updates, but nothing that should affect the great feel of the game. It should be published in Q1, 2012.

Kingdom Builder is a new game from Donald X. Vaccarino (designer of Dominion). This is about building your kingdom (!) on a hex terrain map. The map is made up of 4 sections out of the 8 that come with the game, which provides a wide variety of boards to play on. And while the rules for how you build the settlements to make your kingdom remain the same from game to game, the goals of how you want to place them change, by using 3 goal cards of the 8 available. This looks to be quite fun with plenty of replayability.

Nefarious is another title from Donald X. Vaccarino. In this game, you and your opponents all play evil geniuses trying to invent your evil machines. However, you’re also trying to speculate what your opponents will do this turn, and you get Bags of Money if you’re correct. This seems like it will be a relatively lightweight game, but could be a lot of fun.

Are there any games you’re looking forward to?

Quarriors is another game I got recently. This was one that I’d been expecting and looking forward to. It’s another “deck” building game in the style of Dominion but with dice instead of cards. The rules are online.

This, I have to say, has left me wanting. I like the basic idea – collecting dice representing spells to be cast and creatures to be summoned. I like the execution of each set of dice having different abilities depending on the card that gets used with it. However, there are a few things that bug me a bit. It’s a lot more random than Dominion. Yes, I know, it’s a dice game, and randomness comes with that territory. But many other games allow you to use the different results in different ways. With Quarriors there didn’t seem to be many meaningful decisions. You roll your dice, hope at least one came up as a creature to summon, and the others had enough quiddity to summon it. If you get a bad role, you’re done, no matter how well tuned your “deck” of dice might be. And as for purchasing new dice, it seems to simply be “get the one you can afford” – again, no real decision making.

And there lies the next problem. If I can’t guarantee I can use the power of a particular die when it’s in my hand because of the luck of the roll, then I’d like to be able to make sure the better dice come up more often so I’m rolling them more often, in order to better my chances of getting the roll I want. With the exception of the abilities of I think maybe one or two of the spells or creatures (which therefore rely on a good roll), the only way to trim your “deck” of dice is to have creatures survive the round from opponents attack, so that you can “cull” weaker dice from your deck. That means you’re already doing relatively well, what with good die rolls for yourself, and perhaps poor ones from your opponents, plus you’ve just scored. So as a reward for doing well enough to score, you get to trim your deck, improving your position further. And, the better dice available are going to improve your score and be powerful against your opponents, which can result in a runaway leader problem.

Compare these problems with Dominion. I may not have any method of trimming available to me. But if that’s the case, at least I know that I can use the ability of the card if it’s in my hand at the start of my turn. As for purchasing cards, because Victory cards (normally) hurt me in regards to the power of the deck, it can sometimes be a difficult decision – do I get the Victory card because I can and dilute my deck a little? Or do I get a different card to improve my deck, hoping I can make back the opportunity cost at a later time?

Lastly, the rules didn’t go into detail about some of the creatures, and there are some timing issues which are really not clear. I think in our group we made what are sensible decisions, but it would be nice to have official word from the publisher. Again, it almost seems unfair to compare to Dominion, but the nature of the game almost forces you to. The designer and developers for Dominion have been so thorough in making sure timing issues are understood, and that card interactions are clearly explained, that they’ve set a high standard, one which Quarriors unfortunately doesn’t meet.

It’s certainly an interesting concept, one which I was excited about, but ultimately disappointed me.

6/10

Eminent Domain is a new game from Seth Jaffee, and published by Tasty Minstrel Games.

As game comparisons almost always happen, it’s sort of a cross between Race for the Galaxy, Glory to Rome and Dominion.

I’m not going to explain the rules in detail, because they are available online. Having said that, I will say that there are three basic ways to score points – discovering and conquering planets either through colonization or warfare; producing and trading goods on previously conquered planets; and acquiring higher level technologies. All three are valid approaches, and you’ll probably have to do at least a little of each.

Like Dominion, it is a deck building game. However, I think it’s the first game since Dominion to put a really new spin on that mechanism. Dominion-like games are the same basic formula – play cards from your hand, then acquire a new card which goes into your deck. With Eminent Domain, you acquire basic cards by selecting the role, which you perform, and then everyone else has the option to perform that role as well. The tech cards can also be added to your deck through the research role, and the research action allows you to remove cards from your deck. Anyone who’s familiar with the Chapel card in Dominion will understand how important trimming ones deck is.

This is the first game in a long time, probably since Dominion or maybe Innovation, where after my first play, my brain was running on full steam, analyzing my play, thinking about what could have been done differently, thinking about the different possible strategies.

I’ve been focussing on one basic strategy type in the dozen or so games I’ve played, trying out slight variations on the theme. The strategies are affected by the planet you start with and the ones you survey, as that affects which techs are available to you. It is clear that there are multiple paths to victory, and it’s largely a case of travelling along your path more quickly and efficiently than your opponents.

The game is so simple at its core, and yet feels so rich in the possibilities – it has quickly become a firm favourite.

10/10

Eminent Domain at Tasty Minstrel Games

Last month, the board game group I organize had its 1,000th event, something that Meetup HQ thought was worth blogging about.

I’ve loved board games from an early age – it was the tradition for family holidays for my dad to buy a game (or two, if he could manage it without mum knowing!) and bringing them with us to our holiday destination. He would always keep them secret until sometime after we arrived. We were always eager to see what the new game was.

Playing games as a family holds some great memories of spending time together (and not actually fighting with my siblings). Some of the games we played were pretty good, too.

Some particular fond memories of The Game of Nations – “Dad, what’s a pippy-linny?” I asked as I was reading the word “pipeline” in the rules. Buccaneer had beautiful bits – the little treasures were very cool.

Some interesting marble games – Intrigue, Stay Alive, and Inclination were played a lot. All of them used gravity in some way as part of the game play.

The first game to win the Spiel des Jahres award, Hare & Tortoise was a favourite – it was one of the few games we could get mum to play. It’s a well designed game, with not much luck in it (indeed, the designer’s preferred variant has no luck in it at all), and it still holds up as a good game today.

All of these game tended to use strategy rather than luck, and were so much more interesting that Monopoly or Risk. I had a bit of a break from games, when in Upper School, and at University. But when I moved to Cambridge, I happened upon a game group there – I only joined them a couple of times, but it was enough to encourage me to seek out a game group when I moved to London. That game group was Swiggers, a group that I still visit when I make trips to London. As well as regular gaming there, they also introduced me to some of the annual board game conventions in the UK – a whole weekend of playing board games was so much fun!

It was natural for me to seek out board gamers when I moved to St Louis. I found a small group, but they met irregularly, and it was typically at a few hours notice. An email would go out mid afternoon to say that someone was free and they would invite people over, but I generally couldn’t play at that short notice. I did manage to play with them a few times, enough to meet Marty, who invited me over one Day After Thanksgiving to enjoy leftover turkey and play a few games. It was there that I met Mark, who was part of another group, but this group met regularly, every Thursday.

Finally, I got to play games regularly. At some point, I found Meetup and joined the board game group in the area, but the group simply wasn’t meeting. The organizer stepped down, and I decided I could make it work, so asked the group I’d been meeting with if they would be willing to hold one event a month in public instead of in a private home, and if they would then sign up to provide RSVPs enough to encourage other people to come. The rest of the story is told in the Meetup HQ blog post I referred to earlier.

Why do I enjoy games so much? They make me think, they help me exercise my brain, and they are also very social. I’ve made some good friends through board games, and I can even directly attribute my return to the IT career to one of the members of the group. Board games are also great value for money. $50 for a game may seem a lot, but when you consider a group of 4 going to the cinema, at maybe $8-10 a ticket, plus the insanely expensive refreshments, for just a few hours entertainment, the repeated enjoyment of the game comes out at much greater value.

There are a lot of games out there these days, all kinds of themes, and catering to different levels of strategy. Some light games, that can be played in under 30 minutes, other brain burners that take several hours. If you’re interested in trying them out, and don’t know where to start because of the wide variety, consider finding a local gaming group. Most will be willing to teach you some games, and not throw you in the deep end.

If you’re in St Louis, you’re welcome to come to the St Louis Board Game Meetup Group. We have an extensive calendar, with 15 or 16 events a month, in different parts of the metropolitan area, so we should be able to accommodate you for when you are free and a location that’s convenient. If you’re not in St Louis, try searching online. Two places to try are the Board Game Geek Game Groups page, or Meetup. If you can’t find anything there, consider trying to find a Friendly Local Game Store to help you out.

If you’re part of a gaming group, feel free to advertise it in the comments, no matter where in the world you are. It may be helpful to someone who finds this post.