Here's a game I want

I think Eiertanz is a game I want after reading this Session Report. Sounds like a lot of fun.

A Looney Labs Experiment!

Come play some Looney Labs games like Werewolf, Fluxx, Chrononauts, and Zendo, and learn about ALL the fantastic games they've invented at one of the newest game stores in the St. Louis area! Experienced demo-team will happy to play games with you all evening. Stop by for an hour or all evening. Bring friends!

When: Friday, March 30, from 6pm - late

Where: Gamer Ground
8907 St. Charles Rock Rd.
St. John, MO 63114
314-423-4800

Directions: Near the corner of St Charles Rock Road and Brown, less than a mile west of I-170.

Take I-170 to St Charles Rock Road and go west. Go past the QT, through the lights at McKibbon, through the lights at Brown (passing the Walgreens), and you'll see Gamer Ground on the right, it's actually on a bit of a "frontage road" at that point.

Watch for and take the very next right (Eminence Ave), just before Winterowd Florists, and opposite the St John Municipal Center. Take another IMMEDIATE right (you'll basically make a very tight U-Turn) onto St. Charles Lane, and you'll be heading east parallel to Rock Road. Watch for a large parking lot on the left next to the A1 Nail place. Gamer Ground is on the other side of A1 Nails in the same building.

Please come play with us!! (and please share this info with others!)

Review - 10 days in Africa / Europe / the USA

These three games are essentially the same game, with different maps (obviously) and a few different options because of the map differences.

First impressions.

The map boards are bright and clear, with the states or countries each in one of five colours (except Hawaii and Alaska on the USA board, which are in a sixth colour, purple). The tiles are solid, but stick together a little which makes their handling a little awkward, but not so much as to be a huge annoyance. The tile racks are wood, simple but functional, but as a result have a really good feel. The artwork is functional - it's a map of the area concerned and silhouettes of the states/countries on the tiles, there's not really much you can do with that. They do, however, include the state/country capital, the population (at time of publication) and the area. The plane, car (USA/Africa), and ship (Europe) tiles are nicely designed, and I did notice that John Kovalic (probably best known for his artwork in Dork Tower) is credited for illustration. The rules are on a heavy, glossy paper. They are clear, show some examples, and also clarify possible questions.

The aim of the game.

To create a plan for a 10 day journey across the USA, Africa, or Europe.

Set up.

The players simultaneously take an initial set of 10 tiles, but one tile at a time. The player takes a tile, decides where on their rack to place it, and once placed, takes another tile, then keeps placing them until they have ten tiles. However, once a tile is placed, it cannot be moved to a different day in the journey.

Once all players have their initial ten tiles, the remaining tiles form a draw pile, and the top three are turned over to form three discard piles.

Playing the game.

The active player can draw the top tile from any one of the face up discard piles, or a face down tile from the draw pile. They can then either discard the tile drawn, or discard one of the tiles in their rack, replacing it with the drawn tile. If any one of the three discard piles is empty, (which can only happen if they drew the only tile from that pile) they must discard to that pile; otherwise, they can discard to any pile It's then the next player's turn. If at any time the face down draw pile is exhausted, the tiles from the discard pile, except for the top one of each, are shuffled to create a new draw pile. The 3 tiles kept aside form the new discard piles. Play continues until a player has completed their 10 day journey. Nothing is played onto the board, that's just used as an aid to see where the states/countries are, and how they connect.

Completing a journey.

A completed journey must start with a state/country tile, and end with a state/country tile; you cannot have a transportation tile (plane, car, or ship) at either end. Travelling from one state/country to another can be done in one of three ways. By foot, if travelling to an adjacent territory, the two territory tiles are placed adjacent to each other. By car (USA and Africa only), the two territory tiles have a car transport tile in between them, and the two territories in question must have a territory that borders both. By plane, the two territories must be the same colour, and the plane transport tile in between them must also match in colour. There are special rules for flying by plane to Hawaii and Alaska in the USA game to take account for the fact that that's the only way to travel into and out of these two states. The Europe version doesn't allow the car travel rules, but uses ships instead. Ships are designated to a body of water (Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean), and they go in between two countries, both of which must have some coastline on that body of water. Also, some of the territory tiles are duplicates; a list of these can be found in the rules. This means that if one of those territories has been and gone, you still might be able to get old of one later.

Thoughts.

It's a simple game, with very limited player interaction. You can glean some information about what other players may want from the discards they draw, much as in rummy, but because there are so many ways to use them that doesn't help very much. One tactic that can be used, if you have a tile that you want, but in a different location, is to discard it, hope it's neither picked up nor covered by your next turn, and then draw it again so you can place it where you want it. While that means a 2 player game can be quite strategic, with 4 players it's hard to plan like that. It's not a game of great thought, but it is a game to help learning geography. It's already helped me get a better understanding of geography of all three areas. A minor design problem is that the text of the population and area gets hidden when in the rack, and given that when they are in the rack is when you are looking at them most, it's a shame that information is not visible.

Two additional subtle things that make 10 Days in Africa stand out just a little from the other two is that there is a rules summary on the board, and all the countries that have duplicated tiles are marked with an asterisk. This is really helpful to game play, and it's a shame these features aren't on the USA and Europe editions.

6/10 (10 days in USA)
6/10 (10 days in Europe)
6.5/10 (10 days in Africa)

Thanks to Out of the Box Publishing for donating these games to the St Louis Boardgame Meetup Group for review.

Boardgamegeek listing for 10 days in Africa / Europe / the USA

Review - Goldbräu

First impressions

The cards, while not having a linen finish, have been well made and slide nice and easily without sticking. The fences, boss tokens and share markers are all wood, and the brewery contract markers, drunken bum and pretty waitress markers, start player token and payday token are all sturdy cardboard, and do have a linen finish, for a nice tactile feel. The money is a little fiddly, but does the job. The board is nicely laid out, also has the linen finish, and as a nice touch, the back of the board features the symbols of the 6 beer gardens on it. It's subtle touches like that, putting in a little extra work for something that no-one will really see - certainly not during the playing of the game - that shows someone really cared about the production values. The rules are clearly laid out with clear examples of play to ensure things are well understood. The artwork on everything is really very nice.

Aim of the game

Large beer gardens will earn more money both for themselves and the breweries that have the contract with them. That money is divided by the shareholders. Get shares in the businesses, grow the beer gardens, and earn the most money to win the game.

Set up (assuming the 4 player game)

Each beer garden starts with a single table. One gets the Drunken Bum, and another gets the Pretty Waitress. Each player starts with a total of 4 shares in the 10 businesses (Breweries and Beer Gardens), determined by choosing four share cards from an initial hand of 6, and two bosses, the locatiosn of which are determined in player order (Each business can only have one boss at a time). They also get a small amount of cash. The start player gets the start player token, and the player opposite them gets the payday token.

Playing the game

Each round represents one day. After 7 days, it's payday, and everyone gets paid (scores) for the current state of play. Two more weeks of play happen in the same way, and at the end of the third week, the player with the most money wins the game.

At the start of a day, two share cards are drawn from the deck, and put on display. Each player selects one of their three action cards. The cards are "beer garden expansion", "name boss/beer contract" and "acquire share". Once everyone has chosen, they reveal their selection.

Play goes in this order: "expansion" cards, then "boss/contract", then "acquire". If two or more players have chosen the same action card, then when it's time for that action, the players involved take turns clockwise from the current start player.

Beer Garden expansion allows you to incease the size of a beer garden by one space, as long as you have a boss token there. If a player is the only player to select this action, they get to do the action twice - they can either increase the same beer garden a second time, or increase a different one.

The Name Boss/Beer Contract action card allows the player to either try to name their boss to be the boss of a business or change a brewery contract. If you're not the boss of a business, but you have at lease one share there, you can attempt to become boss. As long as the current player who has their boss token there is unable to secure an absolute majority, the take-over will be successful. Share cards can be played by both the active and defending players to change the balance of power. To change a brewery contract, the active player must have a boss in both a brewery and a beer garden. If they do, they may replace the existing contract that the beer garden has with a contract from a brewery that they are the boss of. If you're the only player to select this action, you can do it twice.

The Acquire Share action means that the player can either take one of the two face up cards, or take the top card from the draw deck. If it's a face up share, it's immediately discarded, and a share cube is placed on the appropriate business. If it's a face down share from the draw deck, the player can either reveal and discard it, placing a share cube, or put it into his hand. If it's a Drunken Bum or Pretty Waitress, the player has the option to move the appropriate token by up to two beer gardens from its current location, but not to the beer garden that the other token is in.

There is a cost for this $2 if the player was the only player to play that action card, $5 if two players chose it, or $8 if 3 or 4 players chose it. A single player does not get to buy two shares, the price break is the benefit instead. Of course, if the first two players take face up share cards, the remaining players have to take share cards from the draw deck. Players are not obliged to take share cards, and indeed, may not afford it, if too many other players also took that option.

That marks the end of the day, and the start player token is moved to the next player clockwise.

Payday (scoring)

At the end of the 7th turn (Sunday), it's time to score. It's easy to remember, as it will be the second time the start player token reached the player with the payday token. Before scoring actually commences, players may play any additional share cards from their hands, and add shares to the appropriate businesses. If at any time (now, or during the acquire share pahse, or during the name boss phase), the 6th and last share card of a particualr business is played, any players with but a single share in that business loses it. So it's in your interest to have at least two shares in a business if you can. Each beer garden has a value - each regular table in the garden is worth $4, each table with an umbrella is worth $8. Having the Pretty Waitress in the garden is an additional $20, but the Drunken Bum deducts $12 from the total (though never reducing it below zero). So, for each Garden in turn, calculate it's income. Half of this goes to the brewery that has the contract, so place that money on the brewery for later. Then divide the other half by the number of shares in the Garden. The owner of each share then gets the appropriate number of bucks. If it doesn't divide evenly, and it often won't, the boss gets the left overs. Once all the gardens have been done, the money placed on the breweries gets divided in the same way. It's important that it's done in this fashion, rather than dividing the brewery money as you go, because of the boss getting the excess.

Once the scoring has been done, the start token is moved like with a regular day, and the payday token is moved on place anticlockwise, to mark the end of the second week. Scoring will happen again at the end of the 2nd and 3rd weeks, and then at that point, the winner is the player with the most money.

Thoughts.

The rules are simple and easy to understand. The hardest bit is the mental arithmetic for dividing up the earnings, but there's a chart at the back of the rules for the mathematically challenged. The choices, however, are not so simple. Often you are doing something to help another player, sometimes clearly so (by increasing a beer garden in which they too have shares), sometimes less obviously (by them having shares in the brewery that has the contract for the beer garden you're expanding). With so many options, trying to figure out what your opponents might do, and trying to bluff them (so you an take advantage of the bonus for being the solo player with that action), and the potentially 10 different revenue streams, there's enough going on to make the game really interesting every time it's played. Each day/round goes by really quickly, so don't let the lengthy instructions put you off. Once you get into the swing of things it doesn't take long at all. Try not to let the beer garden you have lots of shares in get blocked off. Try to get your garden big enough to still give income even if the Drunken Bum is there. Take advantage of getting rid of single-share players by getting the 6th share card played.

This is a great game - some complex decisions to be made under simple rules, but choices limited enough that analysis paralysis shouldn't be a problem. There's even the opportunity for a little backstabbing to satisfy your evil side. It's a game I'll happily play under most circumstances, and will even suggest it.

9/10

Thanks to Rio Grande for donating this game to the St Louis Boardgame Meetup Group for review.

Boardgamegeek listing for Goldbräu

Review - Snorta!

First impressions.

The box is sturdy, the cute slightly rubbery animals are wonderful - they are wonderfully designed, and the artwork on the cards matches beautifully. The Denim bag to hold the animals is nice too. What a shame the quality of the cards is not quite as high as they could be. They are not linen finished and have a bit of a tendency to stick together.

Aim of the game

Lose all your cards by being the first tomake the correct animal noise on an opponent when top cards match.

Playing the game

To start with, each player randomly takes a little rubber animal from the bag, places it on the table, and makes a noise that would be identified with that animal (for example, "woof" for the dog). Then everyone hides their animal in their barn, and then they go round again, in turn, making the noise of their animal. Everyone is dealt an equal number of cards, any extras being returned to the box, and those cards become the draw decks for the players.

Each player in turn draws a card and places it face up in front of them. If their card matches another face-up card on the table, the players that have the two matching cards have to make the noise of the animal of that opponent. So, for example, if Chris has the donkey in his barn, and Mark has the frog, then if Chris had turned up a cat card, and then Mark turns up a cat card, Chris has to try and say "ribbit" before Mark says "heehaw". Whoever correctly says it first wins, and the loser has to pick up their stack of face-up cards, and the face-up cards of the winner. Note, however, that any animal noise that would identify that animal would work, so Chris could quite happily say "croak" instead. Ideally, a match occurring should not halt play, but other plays should continue to play cards so that other matches can occur.

There is one special card in the deck, the "Swap" card. If you turn this card face up, you draw a new animal from the bag, and put your old one back in, making the noise of the new one before placing it under your barn.

If you deal your last card out, you win, unless your last card is also a match, in which case you have to win the matchup to win the game

Thoughts

It's quite a fun little memory and reaction game. With the right crowd, there's lots of laughter, as people try hard to remember each others animals to make the right noises. It does have a little quirk in that if someone doesn't match often, or they manage to get their opponents noise in first, it can then be a little harder to remember what their animal is to make their noise shoudl you match with them again later. But that is of course all part of the game. The fact this can accommodate up to 8 makes it a useful game for a slightly larger group, and it's a great light little filler. Someone even suggested making it a drinking game, but I'm not sure that would help the memory any.

It's certainly a game I'd be willing to play under most circumstances, but I know that there are certain groups that would be more appreciative of the light silliness than others.

7/10

Thanks to Out of the Box Publishing for donating this game to the St Louis Boardgame Meetup Group for review.

Boardgamegeek listing for Snorta!

Review - No Thanks!

First Impressions

A small, sturdy box, with 33 linen-finished cards, numbered 3 to 35, and 55 plastic chips. Linen finish cards always get the thumbs-up from me, as they feel really nice in the hand and they do not stick together. So, not a lot of components, but what there is is high quality.

Aim of the game.

The cards are, in turn, put up for a special kind of auction. Cards essentially score their face value, if you win them, but it's the lowest score that wins.

Playing the game

The top card from the deck is turned over, and the active player (initially determined at random) chooses either take it, placing it in front of him in his scoring area, or to decline it, by placing one of his chips on it (No Thanks!). Each player gets 11 chips to start the game. If it's declined, the next person gets a chance to take it, or decline it with a chip. If it is taken, that player also gets all the chips with it, thus increasing the number of opportunities to decline cards later. This process goes on until someone decides to take it instead of placing a chip to decline it (or they've run out of chips so have to accept it). The bid can in this way go round the table several times. Once a card is taken, the next card is revealed, and the player who took the previous card has the first right to decline. Another important aspect is that the number of chips in your hand is kept secret from other players.

Scoring.

Each single card scores the number of points on the card. However, when you have an unbroken number sequence, you only score the lowest one in the sequence. So, for example, if you have 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, you will score 13 for the 13 card, 15 for the 15-16 sequence, and 20 for the 20-21-22 sequence, for a total of 48 points. Also, chips that you have at the end of the game each score -1

The catch.

At the start of the game, 9 cards are randomly and secretly removed from the deck, which means there will necessarily be breaks in some of the runs, but you don't know where. If you have the 32, do you take the 34, in the hope that you'll get the 33 later meaning the 34 won't score? or was the 33 one of the removed cards?

Thoughts.

Different cards have different values to different people. someone with the 30 would like to get the 29 as it reduces their score, but will probably increase other players' scores, though if another player has the 28, the 29 will not affect them, so they might take it to prevent the 30-owner from reducing their score. Plus, of course, whoever gets it gets the chips on it. It's an interesting little game, with trying to second guess your opponents sometimes. Do I place another chip on the card knowing I'm essentially giving that chip and all the others on it to the next person who will add it to their sequence? Has the card got enough chips on it already to make it acceptible to take it? or is someone else going to take it if I don't, meaning I'll run out of chips and get stuck with a really bad card? Or, if I have the 34, how many times can I make the 35 go around the table collecting chips, before someone else decides I'm too greedy and takes the hit to prevent me from getting it? Or, perhaps more pertinently, I misjudged how many chips each player has, and someone else is forced to take it as they ran out of chips.

So, it's a simple little game, is very easy to learn, and doesn't take long at all to play. It has enough decision making to keep it interesting, and there are some subtle strategies to be explored. I like it, I'll happily play it.

8/10

Thanks to Z-Man Games for donating this game to The St Louis Boardgame Meetup Group for review.

Boardgamegeek listing for No Thanks!

Geekway to the west 2006!

Geekway to the West is a boardgaming convention in St Louis (the Gateway to the West), run by Jay Little and this year, in association with the The St Louis Boardgame Meetup Group. The main event was on Saturday, but some of us also got together on the Friday. Somehow, I was too busy playing games to take pics on Saturday, but I did get quite a few from the Friday.
Jason had drawn a chalk version of the logo on his driveway for all to see as they arrived...
... and had a sign in the window too, just to make sure you knew you were at the right place.
Tom was caught carrying some Contraband through customs
Then there was some wheeling and dealing for gems in Basari
Timothy managed to build a large Domaine.
But was then thoroughly targetted in Cash N Guns
and my last pic from the event is where we built a Big City
Much fun was had by all (on the order of 70 people), some coming from Chicago, Nashville, and even Atlanta!