7 Wonders with Video

I don't have tons to say about 7 Wonders, certainly not enough to do a full review treatment.  Fact is, I like the game.  Right now it's #4 on my top games list.  It's a card drafting game, a civilization game, and a good game for 3-7 players where each player number offers something different, but the game is still the same.

7 Wonders isn't the easiest game to learn, in fact it has some different ideas.  It plays quick, each player only has 18 card plays, so each move matters. Because every move matters, you have to know what the end game holds to understand what you're going for early on.

Well, rather than read my writing, you can listen to my words.

Part 1

Part 2

Dice Tower Gaming Award Nominations

The Dice Tower Award Nominations came out this morning for games produced in 2011.  I wanted to take a look at them, give you my choice from the list, and the one I think will win.  Often these will be the same, but I think some differences will exist too.  If you feel so inclined, leave a comment below as to where you disagree.

Game of the Year:

A Few Acres of Snow: Martin Wallace – Treefrog Games
The Castles of Burgundy: by Stefan Feld – Ravensburger
Eclipse: by Touko Tahkokallio – Asmodee
The Ares Project: Brian and Geoff Engelstein – Z-Man Games
King of Tokyo: by Richard Garfield – IELLO
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game: by Nate French – Fantasy Flight Games
Mage Knight Board Game: by Vlaada Chvatil – WizKids
Quarriors!: by Mike Elliott and Eric M. Lang – Wizkids
Risk Legacy: by Rob Daviau and Chris Dupuis – Hasbro
Star Trek: Fleet Captains: by Mike Elliott, Bryan Kinsella, and Ethan Pasternack – WizKids


My Choice: Star Trek: Fleet Captains
What I Think Will Win: Eclipse

Best Family Game Nominees:Flash Point: Fire Rescue: by Kevin Lanzing – Indie Boards and Cards
Kingdom Builder: by Donald X. Vaccarino – Queen Games
King of Tokyo: by Richard Garfield – IELLO
Quarriors!: by Mike Elliott and Eric M. Lang – Wizkids
Say Anything Family Edition: by Dominic Crapuchettes – North Star Games


My Choice: Say Anything Family Edition
What I Think WIll Win: Flash Point: Fire Rescue


Best New Game Designer Nominees:
Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game: by Jason Little – Fantasy Flight Games
Flash Point: Fire Rescue: by Kevin Lanzing – Indie Boards and Cards
The Ares Project: Brian and Geoff Engelstein – Z-Man Games
Sentinels of the Multiverse: by Christopher Badell and Paul Bender – Greater Than Games
Nightfall: David Gregg – Alderac Entertainment Group

My Choice: Flash Point

What I Think WIll Win: Sentinels of the Multiverse

Best Game Reprint Nominees:
Can’t Stop: by Sid Sackson – Gryphon Games
Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War: by Robert Abbott – Stronghold Games
Evo: by Philippe Keyaerts – Asmodee
A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition): by Christian T. Petersen – Fantasy Flight Games
Puerto Rico: Anniversary Edition: by Andreas Seyfarth – Rio Grande Games

My Choice: Can't Stop

What I Think WIll Win: Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War

Best Production Values Nominees:
Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game: by Peter Lee, Mike Mearls, and Bill Slavicsek – Wizards of the Coast
Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game: by Peter Lee, Mike Mearls, and Bill Slavicsek – Wizards of the Coast
Mansions of Madness: by Corey Konieczka – Fantasy Flight Games
Risk Legacy: Rob Daviau and Chris Dupuis, Hasbro
Super Dungeon Explorer: by Chris Birkenhagen, John Cadice, and Deke Stella – Soda Pop Miniatures

My Choice: Super Dungeon Explorer

What I Think WIll Win: Super Dungeon Explorer

Best Small Publisher Nominees:

Flash Point: Fire Rescue, by Kevin Lanzing – Indie Boards and Cards

Dungeon Run, Mr. Bistro, Plaid Hat Games

Rallyman: by Jean-Christophe Bouvier, Rallyman Inc.

Sentinels of the Multiverse: by Christopher Badell and Paul Bender – Greater Than Games

Bears!: by Anne-Marie De Witt, – Fireside Games

My Choice: Flash Point

What I Think WIll Win: Dungeon Run

Best Party Game Nominees:

Crappy Birthday: by Brian Weinstock and Amy Weinstock – North Star Games

Dixit: Odyssey: by Jean-Louis Roubira – Asmodee

Reverse Charades Junior Edition: Scott and Bryce Porter – Gryphon Games

Faux-Cabulary: by Matthew Nuccio – Out of the Box

Train of Thought: by Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim – Tasty Minstrel Games

My Choice: Dixit: Odyseey

What I Think WIll Win: Reverse Charades Junior

Best Game Expansion Nominees:

Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 1 – Team Asia & Legendary Asia: by Alan R. Moon and Francois Valentyne – Days of Wonder

Thunderstone: Dragonspire: by Mike Elliott and Brent Keith, Alderac Entertainment Group

Small World Underground: by Philippe Keyaerts – Days of Wonder

7 Wonders: Leaders: by Antoine Bauza – Asmodee

Summoner Wars: Master Set, by Colby Dauch – Plaid Hat Games

My Choice: Ticket to Ride Map Collection 1

What I Think WIll Win: Summoner Wars

Most Innovative Game Nominees:

The Ares Project: by Brian and Geoff Engelstein – Z-Man Games

Ascending Empires: by Ian Cooper – Z-Man Games

Paperclip Railways: Tony Boydell, Surprised Stare Games Ltd

Quarriors!: by Mike Elliott and Eric M. Lang – Wizkids

Risk Legacy: by Rob Daviau and Chris Dupuis – Hasbro

My Choice: Risk Legacy

What I Think WIll Win: Risk Legacy

Talk about a hard category here, I could see anything winning.

Best Game Artwork Nominees:

Dixit: Odyssey: by Marie Cardouat and Pierô- Asmodee

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game: by various artists – Fantasy Flight Games

Mansions of Madness: by Christopher Burdett, Anders Finer, and Henning Ludvigsen – Fantasy Flight Games

Flash Point: Fire Rescue, by Luis Francisco and George Patsouras – Indie Boards and Cards

A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition): by Tomasz Marek Jedruszek and henning Ludvigsen – Fantasy Flight Games

My Choice: Dixit: Odyssey

What I Think WIll Win: The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Best War Games Nominees:

Sekigahara: Unification of Japan: by Matt Calkins – GMT Games

Band of Brothers: by Jim Krohn – Worthington Games

A Few Acres of Snow: by Martin Wallace – Treefrog Games

Julius Caesar: by Grant Dalgliesh and Justin Thompson – Columbia Games

Sergeants Miniatures Game: Jeff Billings, Lost Battalion Games

My Choice: A Few Acres of Snow

What I Think WIll Win: A Few Acres of Snow

Best Game Theme Nominees:

Dungeon Petz: by Vlaada Chvatil – Z-Man Games

Flash Point: Fire Rescue, by Kevin Lanzing – Indie Boards and Cards

Last Will: by Vladimir Suchy – Rio Grande Games

Yggdrasil: by Cedric Lefebvre and Fabrice Rabellino – Z-Man Games

Takenoko: by Antoine Bauza – Asmodee

My Choice: Flash Point

What I Think WIll Win: Flash Point

Best Digital Boardgame Nominees:

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer: by Robert Dougherty, John Fiorillo, Justin Gary, and Brian M. Kibler – iOS, Playdek

Ticket to Ride: by Alan R. Moon – iOS, Days of Wonder

Forbidden Island: by Matt Leacock, Gamewright – iOS, Button Mash Games

Ghost Stories: by Antoine Bauza – iOS, Repos Productions

Elder Sign: by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson, Fantasy Flight Games

My Choice: Forbidden Island

What I Think WIll Win: Ticket to Ride

There are a lot of great nominees here, and picking winners is hard to do, but I think these are mostly great games, and each has a lot to offer. 

Star Runner Part 1

Sample box holding all
the components.

Friday marked a completely new experience for me in my board game life.  I played a game of my own design.  Yes, that's right, a design of my own creation and a lot of help from a few friends came together in paper and cardboard to make a board game.  If you hadn't guess from the title, the game is operating under the name Star Runner.  Star Runner stared as a rough concept in the summer of 2009.  I wanted to design a game based on Firefly, so my first thought was to use different elements of that universe and figure something out to make it work.  As I worked on it, I realized I wanted some more creative freedom, so the Firefly cannon was dropped, but some ideas still exist from that.
Some of those ideas are found in the set-up of the game, which is get a ship, get a crew, find a job, try to make money, and stay out of trouble.

Focus on the various types of cards
From left to right we have
Tech in orange, Passangers in blue
Runs in green, Crew with the black bar
and colors at the bottom, and
resource cards in the TTR deck facedown.

It's still very early on, but I spent 3 hours printing everything (thanks to my generous aunt and her color laser printer) and then the better part of a week gluing, cutting and sleeving everything. As my friends will attest, I kept telling people I was cutting something for my game, and I felt it was all I was ever telling them.  I would cut while watching TV or listening to podcasts, and use my friends as nice breaks from the strain of scissors.

I think the components look pretty good, especially for testing. I'm using old Star Trek CCG cards as backers for the big cards, and the US Ticket to Ride cards as backers for the small cards. Fortunately, they don't detract from the game play, though the sleeves get annoying for shuffling at times.  The good news with shuffling is that most of it is done in the beginning, and after that, there's very little, so it keeps things moving.  It took us about an hour to go through set-up and teaching, but that's because I was the only person setting up, and next time it should go faster, at least I can hope.

Game in progress, about 1/3 done.

One of my biggest fears going in, besides the fear of complete rejection and not having a fun game, was that the market system would crash and burn.  As it turns out, it was a pretty clear system with two players monitoring it.  Everyone ended up having a job or two of their own. One player was the banker for money, two managed the market, and helped with cards. One also helped manage the movement arcs, and I took care of drawing market and inspection tokens.  Several other things crashed and burned, but we tweaked what we could while playing, and wrote down changes that we think will work better next time. Next time is also the best news I could ever get, because it means they liked the game.

Speaking of the fear of rejection, it really is unnerving to place something you've created in front of other people for the first time.  I've invested parts of the last 30 months into this, and a good portion of the last 3 months, so to have that go to waste would be deflating.

The crucial thing I learned with testing this was how to make adjustments on the fly.  We saw that something wasn't working, and we came up with a way to fix it.  Some other things are design elements I have to go back and rework, but I have a much better idea on how the game plays, and thus how to design it how I want it to play.

I hope this post also clarifies why I've been a bit sparse with my postings.  Trying to get a design to prototyping was a big push, and once I could see it close, I just had to get there.  My original plan was May 1st and I'm proud to say I beat that arbitrary deadline by 2.5 weeks.

If you'd like to know more, leave a comment with any questions, and I will answer them to the best of my ability in Part 2.

Cosmic Alliance Review

Cosmic Alliance is the 3rd expansion to Cosmic Encounter.  The box contains a new color (white), and all the materials for an extra player, 20 new powers, extra cards for a large game, and rules to play teams.

I've had Alliance since early March, but I wanted to wait on a review until I had a chance to play teams.  Fortunately, I got that chance at the end of March when I visited Westmont.  I played with 6 players, 2 of whom had never played, and 1 who had only played twice and barely remembered anything, so essentially 3 new players.  Due to that, we decided to have the 3 who remembered the game pair up with the 3 newbies and formed teams that way.

I like the aspect that you always have your teammate as an ally.  It is a great way to introduce people to the game, and is now my method of choice for helping.  You may have to bend some rules and let a teammate see cards so they can explain things, but that just makes for a better team effort.
I give the team rules a big thumbs up.  It's a great way to teach the game, and a great way play with large groups.

Let me take a moment to talk about the extra cards.  Two words - Power Creep.  Another Attack 30 and a Reinforcement +8??? Those are just too good.  Might as well have another 40.  Also, all even values on the Attack card, further skewing things to even.  Where were the 17s, 19s, 15s, maybe even a 21.  The choices for cards here seem odd, and lacking creativity.  It's nice to have more cards for the main deck, but the community could have come up with a better set.

The new powers are fun.  People may complain about this power being too good, or this one being too weak, but you just have to go with it.  Cosmic is more about your hand and your ability to persuade others than the actual power you have.  It's simply called make the best of what you have.  Sure, the design team should come out with better powers, but once they're there either don't play with them or learn to play the power.  I like the challenge of figuring out how to play Observer well, or Hacker.  Each power has it's strengths and weaknesses, and the fun of Cosmic 200 games later is finding new ways to exploit a power's potential.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Horde, or as we like to call them, Cosmic Scrubbing Bubbles, or Duckies.

Until next time, have fun playing games.

March 2012 Update

Welcome to April

March saw several good gaming days, including a trip to Westmont and two amazing days of gaming.  I logged 32 game plays not counting expansions, bringing the running total to 82.  It's a little ahead of the curve, but April has fewer game opportunities at present.

I acquired two new games, Hunger Games Jabberjay, which I've already reviewed, and I traded my copy of Quarriors for Elder Sign.

My unplayed game count is now at 15 due to playing Ascending Empires and Twilight Struggle from the new games.

• Tales of the Arabian Nights (soon)
• RoboRally (soon)
• Zooloretto 
• Coloretto (Soon)
• Elder Sign
• Descent (Summer hopefully)
• Scrabble Slam 
• Monopoly Express 
• Clue Express 
• Battleship Express 
• Crappy Birthday
• S'quarrels 
• Risk 2210 AD (Risk Legacy takes precedent)
• Settlers of Canaan (no rush since I have other means of playing Catan)
• High Bid 

March saw the 3,000th page view for this blog which is incredible in under 4 months, thank-you all so much for that.  

I didn't get as many reviews as I would have liked done.  This has a lot to do with my work on a project which I'll be announcing soon.

April should hold a full review for the following

• 7 Wonders
• Star Trek Fleet Captains
• Cosmic Alliance (Cosmic Encounter Expansion)

I plan on taping a how to play video for 7 wonders, since there have been some requests.  This will take time, but hopefully it will be out soon.

The best news, one of my year goals has been completed.  I taught Cosmic Encounter to not just one, but two new players.

Risk Legacy is also up to 4/15 games.

I also ran a micro tournament of Dominion, I lost in the semifinals, but won the consolation game for 3rd place.