Better Selection at Barnes and Noble

I stopped in Barnes and Noble by work the other day and was impressed with the fact that their game selection is getting better.  On the shelf was a lot of the usual suspects, but also Dominion, Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, Qwirkle and some other very good games.  They may be worth a stop if you are looking for a game to buy!

It's Your Move!

Mass Market Mêlée – Risk: Revised Edition

Most of my friends and acquaintances have two games they consistently know, and one of them is Risk.  This is the Epic Game for most of them; the game that produced most of the fond (or not!) memories.  I have to admit that I really like Risk, and I am glad to have played it.  Past tense.

Photo by Leo Zappa

A few years ago, Hasbro floated a small print run game to the gaming community:  Risk: Black Ops.  It was a very hot item, and it is said it was really a marketing study for the revised rules they were considering for a revision to Risk itself.  Regardless, the rules from Black Ops were incorporated into the rules for the 2008 edition of Risk.  This has taken a game I have always enjoyed but was too long for most evenings to a new level: a new game I will play anytime! The new rules introduced cities and capitals.  The overwhelming power of the cards was reduced.  Lastly, objectives were introduced, which now define the game end and winning condition.   I am going to take the liberty of assuming you know how the original game worked.

Cities and capitals change the count for armies at the beginning of the turn.  Cities are placed on the board randomly at the beginning of the game, and each player places his or her capital in a territory they control at the beginning of the game.  Rather than just count countries at the beginning of their turn, players count countries and cities, then divide by three to get newly recruited armies.  Another army is added if the player still controls their own capital.  Armies are still gained for controlling continents.

Cities and capitals go on the board at the start; some of the bonuses from objective go on too. (Photo by Liang Roo Wang)

Gone are the massive armies generated by turning in cards.  Cards have one or two stars on them, and the number of stars turned in determines the number of armies received.  Any number of cards can be turned in, totaling a maximum of ten stars.  However, you won’t want to hold onto your cards that long!

Objectives are the biggest change by far.  They give the cities and capitals even more importance, as they shape the endgame and victory conditions.  At the beginning of the game, eight objectives are placed on the map.  These objectives may include taking over an opponent’s capital, controlling a certain number of cities, conquering an entire continent in one turn, or some other goal.  This is the biggest change to the game, because the first person to achieve three objectives wins!  Forget about wiping people off the board!

The combination of these changes results in a game that is very familiar yet far more fun.  The combat dice rolling is still there, as well as most of the major elements.  However, this game now plays in 90 minutes, and after many plays I have never seen a player eliminated!  Never again will people be sitting around for hours to find out the winner of the game they were eliminated from hours ago!

Strategically, there are important differences.  First of all, there is “turtling” in Australia or South America: building up a massive horde to OVERRUN THE WORLD IN STEEL AND BLOOD!  Mwahaha! – er, um, yeah.  No, if you are building up a massive army, you are losing time to those who are skirmishing and raiding to take those objectives (some of which give a combat bonus).  You will lose.  The name of this game is opportunism.  It is probably a little less strategic and a little more tactical than the original, but it is much more fun!

For the family gamer, the new Risk  is excellent for age eight and above.  The only issue with children is the emotional one; some kids are just not ready for Mommy or Daddy to grind them down and seize their cities and capitals.  Tears may be the result.  However, children approaching 9 or 10 could easily grasp the rules.  Given that most people could be given a three minutes explanation of the rule changes, and would know the rest, I believe this game is a must have for the casual gamer.  It will easily bring back those epic games of the past.

One additional note:  This is the same game as Risk: Onyx Edition.  However, the line between Iceland and Greenland is missing in the Onyx version.  This is a misprint: the line is supposed to be there.

Vital Statistics:

Risk (Revised)

                Ages:                    10 and up

                Time:                     90 minutes

                Players:                 3-5

It’s Your Move!

Qwirkle wins Spiel des Jahres; 7 Wonders Kennerspiel!

Recently I wrote about the Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres awards.  This is just a quick nod to the winners:

Spiel des Jahres: Qwirkle
I have to say I am really happy about this, although I didn't expect it.  I certainly believe this is a great game; I was pulling for this one.  I reviewed it a few weeks ago - check it out.

Promotional Image by Asmodee

Kennerspiel des Jahres: 7 Wonders
I expected this from the buzz this game created.  It was very hard to get a copy; my order took a couple of months to arrive.  I still need to get it to the table though!

Congratulations to the winners!








It's Your Move!

Qwirkle - Matt's Opinion

Fellow blogger Matt Stevenson wrote another, more in depth review of Qwirkle.  You can find it at:

http://boardgamebackroom.blogspot.com/2011/06/fresh-baked-qwirkle-by-susan-mckinley.html

It's Your Move!

Mass Market Marvel – Qwirkle

What in the world is a Qwirkle?  You know the old saying: “He’s a psycho, you’re eccentric and I just have a little Qwirkle!”  No, can’t say I’ve heard it either…

Promotional image from Mindware

Qwirkle is a game for two to four players that has been described as Scrabble with shapes and colors.  Not exactly how I would phrase it, but nonetheless it gives a mental picture of what each player is doing.  It has been available at Target for quite some time, and has made its way to K-mart in my area, which is fantastic.  Why?  Because it is a great game that won the 2007 Mensa Select award and is now up for the 2011 Spiel des Jahres.  It is fun, accessible for all ages, and develops pattern recognition skills.  However, do not mistake this for an “educational game”; this game is quite a bit of fun!  What follows is a look at the pieces, an overview of game play, and a bit on accessibility.

The components to Qwirkle consist of black blocks with six shapes painted in six colors on the “face” side.  The combination of color and shape gives thirty six individual blocks, each of which is repeated three times for a total of 108 pieces.  There is no board; the only other component is the draw bag.  The heft of all of these blocks means this game is a great game to play outdoors.  Nothing will blow away in the wind.  I probably wouldn’t take it camping (and certainly not backpacking!) due to the size and weight of the game, but my wife and I have played at the football field during our son’s practice with just a little folding game table and some chairs.  Playing this on the porch on a cool summer evening would be great!

Game play is equally simple.  On a players turn, they choose from one or more tiles in their “hand” and play them together to the table.  The goal is to create lines of one color with all six shapes, or lines of one shape with all six colors in a crossword style pattern.  One point is awarded for each tile (including already placed tiles) in the newly enlarged line.  If two tiles are added to a line of two existing tiles, the player will receive four points.  If they manage to add to more than one line, points are awarded for all of them.  If the play completes a line so that all six colors or shapes are present (called a Qwirkle!) the player receives an additional six points.  Then, tiles a drawn from the draw bag to replenish the “hand”.  The player with the highest score when blocks run out is the winner.  It’s easy to see where the comparisons to Scrabble come to mind.

Promotional image from Mindware

The game box says that children down to six years old can play, and that sounds about right.  Getting a typical 6-year-old to sit for 45 minutes at one game might be a trick though.  Nonetheless, Qwirkle is a game that we have taught lots of people to play, some of whom had never played games even as kids.  Occasionally, there will be a misplay by a new player, but I still sometimes make an illegal move by mistake, so I can’t complain there.  Those moves are normally caught by someone, before it becomes an issue.

This is a great game that I highly recommend.  It is priced very reasonably; great for a game on a budget. Particularly for family play, this game is fantastic.  

Vital Statistics:

Qwirkle

                Ages:                     6 and up

                Time:                     45 minutes

                Players:                 2-4 (but we have pushed this to six players!)

It’s Your Move!

Mass Market – Monopoly

Promotional Image

Every month I try to take one posting to talk about a mass market game.  This month is Monopoly; do I really need to review this game?  Yes, Monopoly is worth looking at, since it is such an influential game in society.  Granted, Prince William and Prince Harry weren’t allowed to play it, but so many people are familiar with the game that idioms such as “Do not pass Go” have sprung from it.  However, Monopoly does suffer from several problems:  a) the game is long and has player elimination, b) house rules extend the length of the game and c) there are better economic/real estate games to play.  It’s sort of like cheese pizza.  It’s never bad, but there are better things to eat.

Player elimination in a long game is just a bad idea.  If Monopoly is the chosen for of entertainment for the evening, people are guaranteed to be sitting around with nothing to do but watch at some point.  After a few hours, one or two players will be eliminated, with a few hours to go before the winner is declared.  Worse, this is a game that telegraphs the ending.  So often you know who win before the game is actually over, leading to everyone being bored in the end game.

Our other version.  (Image by Dean)

The problem is magnified by house rules, both intentional and unintentional.  Intentional house rules are things like money in Free Parking.  This is actually against the written rules, but many people include these house rules as an attempt to solve the player elimination problem.  The catch is that it just prolongs the inevitable; players eventually have to be eliminated for someone to win.  It surprises most people, but there are unintentional house rules too.  The most common one is the rule that landing on a property is the only way to buy it.  According to the official rules, however, if the player who lands on a property chooses not to buy it, the bank puts it up for auction.  This should speed up the game, since the properties will be sold sooner.  However, I know that I have never personally played in a game where that rule was followed.

A Monopoly spin off that is supposedly pretty good.

Let’s take a moment and talk about ways to speed the game up.  First of all, get rid of all house rules.  Demand that debts are always paid in full; no one gets off light to stay in the game.  If the game still needs to move faster, the official rules suggest shuffling the properties and dealing them out.  Of course, that could set up an uneven game from the start.  Hasbro tournament rules put a 90-minute or two hour time limit on games.  In these rules, the winner is determined by adding up all assets at the end of the game.  Somehow, none of these ideas seems to be particularly satisfying.  I have another idea, though some people won’t like it.  Play a different board game.

I will suggest two real estate games to replace Monopoly.  The first is For Sale.  I haven’t played this game yet, (but it is high on my list) so I won’t review it in any way.  It’s worth mentioning solely on its reputation.  The game is for 3 − 6 players ages 8 and up.  (The BoardGameGeek entry is here.)  It plays in 20 minutes.  The other is Acquire, which is one of my favorite games.  I will review it next time, so you will have to wait a couple of days for the details.  Both are currently in print.

Of course, if you love Monopoly, than by all means play it!  There is a saying amongst amateur astronomers, “The best telescope isn’t the one with the best optics, it’s the one you will use the most.”  The same goes for everything else in life, including the games you play.  After all, there is a reason Monopoly has been around since 1933!

It’s Your Move!

Mass Market Monkey-business: Bananagrams

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about Scrabble and the fact that it really isn’t a vocabulary game.  This time I will cover a game that really is about your ability with words: Bananagrams.  I generally don’t like word games, with Scrabble being a rare exception.  Bananagrams turns out to be another exception.  I like how easy it is to learn, how fast it plays, and the fact that it lends itself to secret handicaps.  All of this makes the game one of those rare finds; it’s a mass-market game that really is fun!

Bananagrams promotional image

The game is incredibly easy to learn.  All of the tiles are placed face down in the middle of the table; this is called the “bunch”.  Each player draws a preset number of tiles from the bunch based on the number of players: usually eleven.  Someone calls “go!”, and everyone flips over their tiles and builds a crossword out of them.  When someone completes their crossword, they call “peel!”, and everyone draws another tile.  If you have a tile that is giving you trouble, you may call “dump!” and exchange it for three other tiles.  As letters are added, a player’s words can be disassembled and reassembled, completely rearranging their crossword.  This continues until the tiles in the bunch number less than the number of players.  The first person then done with their crossword is the winner.  There, I taught you the game!  See how easy that was!

The game plays just that fast, too.  It really falls into that category of games known as “speed games”, which tend to be short and center on getting some task completed first, or beating the clock.  (The classic example from my childhood is Perfection.)  My wife and I were judging Destination Imagination a few weeks ago, and finished two games during the half hour lunch break with other judges who had never played before.  The short playing time of this game means that those who need to be sucked in encouraged can play a game that doesn’t last long enough to be painful if they don’t like it.  You will be amazed at how fast an hour or two can go by in twenty minute increments!

Of course, this is where the language skills come into play, which reveals the biggest fault this game has.  Anyone with good language skills will outshine someone with lesser skills.  An adult will outshine a child; a writer will outclass a mathematician.  Since words only have to be two letters long, someone with good word skills can just capture the initiative and keep “peeling”, completely disrupting other players and maintaining the lead.  However, this is where the secret self-handicapping comes into the game.  An adult playing Bananagrams with a child could decide to make nothing less than three letter words to help level the playing field, without letting the child know.  My wife’s favorite secret handicap is to refuse to dump any letters, and live with what she draws.  However it’s done, it is an easy game from which to eliminate any inherent advantages.

I rate Bananagrams as just as a-peel-ing (sorry, it just had to be done!) as Scrabble.  On top of everything else, it is readily available in stores around town, and prices at roughly $15.00 (USD), and can play a bunch of people (okay, I’ll stop!), which makes it almost must have for your game library.  I will say that it is not good for the under 10 crowd, since their word skills are just not developed enough. 

Here’s the vital statistics:

Bananagrams

                Ages:                     7 and up (though I would tend to say 9 at the youngest)

                Time:                     15 minutes

                Players:                  1-8 (but really best with 3-5 players)

And it travels well too!

Mass Market Myth – Scrabble (it’s really not about vocabulary)

I am playing my first game of Word for Friends since its release on Android based phones.  (For those of you who don’t know, Words for Friends is a Scrabble knock-off for smartphones.)  My first game is against a friend of mine who rarely loses.  With sixteen letters left in “the bag”, I am up by 41 points.  I can give the toughest Scrabble program a run for its money.  The reason is that Scrabble is not about vocabulary!  It’s a strategy game.  It’s not about knowing fifteen words that have a Q and no U.  Scrabble is really about four things: making sure you occupy the bonus squares and your opponent does not, creating multiple words at the same time, understanding the power of small words, and knowing when to dump the high value letters.

So here is the disclaimer.  I do recognize that knowing a lot of words does help, as does knowing a bunch of words that start with J or have an X.  I am not saying those abilities are bad.  You probably need all that and more if you want to play at the tournament level.  I am just saying that you can be a very competitive player amongst your friends and family, even those Scrabble fans, by realizing that Scrabble is a strategy game!

The first strategic concept is to take all of the bonus squares, and in particular the triple word squares.  It’s pretty obvious.  Scoring big points this way is good offense, but more than that it’s good defense.  By denying your opponent those squares, you suppress their score.  It’s even more important in a multi-player game, since it holds everyone back, and allows you more control of the game than you have by just aiming for big scores.  Like many games, a player’s ability to control a Scrabble game is lessened with each additional player, and this is a way to combat that effect.

The future of Scrabble?

Creating multiple words at the same time is accomplished by saving the S and D tiles for making plural words and past tense verbs.  I will say it another way: never use an S, and only rarely a D, in a word that does not connect it to another that already exists on the board.  Adding one of these letters to any existing word allows you to score not only your word, but all of the letters in the existing word again!  The joining letter counts in each word.  You don’t get any of their bonus squares, but this is still incredibly powerful!  It allows you to capitalize on your opponents’ vocabulary.  When they play “quark” for a double word score, you can get half of their points for yourself by using an S to make “quarks” in the process of forming another word. 

Use small words.  My wife calls me the king of cheap words.  That’s because I will regularly play some small word to link other words or to gobble up a bonus square – preferable both!  I will admit there are some tricks here that are worth knowing.  Realize that every spelling of a letter’s name is a valid word.  The name of the letter M is spelled “em”.  That’s a word in Scrabble.  It’s in the dictionary (even if my spell checker just flagged it!) For that matter, so are all of the Greek letters, psi, phi, beta and the like.  Greek letters can be used to dump those pesky I’s that clutter up your hand of tiles.  The one, and only one, “Q without a U word” I know is “qat”.  Don’t ask me what it means, I don’t know and don’t care.  All I know is that getting an A and a T is fairly easy, and will help me score the Q.  Beyond that, I use cheap every day words: “the”, “its”, “in”, “on”.  Whatever it takes.

In combination, these three can be very powerful, as I will illustrate.  Our opponent, Dr. Evil, has just played “quell” on a double word score for 28 points, breaking out in his most diabolical “Mwu-ha-ha-ha” laugh as he gloats over his cleverness.  Nonplussed, we play “psi” across the bottom, using the S to connect it in and making “quells” in the process.  The I in “psi” also falls on the triple word score, giving us a total of 30 points!  (“Quells” makes 15 points, and the triple on “psi” is 15 also.)  Dr. Evil snarls and goes back to thinking his dark thoughts and breathing his foul breath over his tiles.  (So I like fantasy themed games, is that a problem?)  If the S would have been gracious enough to fall on the triple word score, both words would have been tripled, for a score of 60!

Lastly, keep in mind that dumping a high value letter late in the game, particularly the Q or the Z, can cause a big shift in the end of game scoring: 20 points for each of those two letters.  Players cannot trade in tiles once there are less than seven in the bag.  Just before that point, take that troublesome letter and trade it in!  In a two player game, there is a 50% chance you will give that problem to your opponent, and too late in the game for them to use the letter effectively.  In a four player game, there is a 75% chance someone else will pick it!  So if you can’t use the letter for your benefit, use it to smack your neighbor!

Hopefully, I have shown you that Scrabble isn’t a vocabulary game, it’s a strategy game.  Occupying bonus squares, making multiple words, using small words, and dumping troublesome letters late in the game will help you beat that Scrabble fanatic in the family.  Working on strategic play rather than big words will improve your score.  I realize now that I have shared all of my secrets, I will never win again.  Oh, the things I sacrifice for my readership!  I guess it’s a good thing I like playing more than winning.  I will still play.  In fact, my username on Words for Friends is feldmafx if anyone is interested…

Keep rolling along!

Mass Market Moment – Blokus

Blokus is a family of games that started in the hobby gaming world and crossed over to the mass market, assisted by the purchase of publication rights by Mattel. The game won many awards, including a Mensa Select award. (Don’t tell the kids, but it also won a Teacher’s Choice award in 2004.) It them spawned several additional versions: Blokus Duo (aka Blokus for 2 and Travel Blokus), Blokus Trigon, and Blokus 3D (aka Rumis). With a simple set up rules and colorful pieces, it draws in potential players, appeals to children, and makes the whole series a set of excellent abstracts.

Photo by Tom Rosen

The original game Blokus is a four player game in which players alternate placing one of their geometric shapes on a board, covering as much as the board as they can by game end. The shapes are made of squares starting with one square and continuing up to every shape which can be built with five squares. The catch is that one player’s pieces can only touch at the corners, which makes it difficult to fence an area off from opponents. At the end of the game, players receive a negative point for every square (not piece!) that is not put in play. Positive points are received for using all of your pieces and for using the one-square piece last. Highest score wins. Stepping back from the board after the game is done shows a pretty mosaic that leaves observers saying, “That looks cool!”
Blokus 3D, originally known as Rumis, also won several awards. The objects are now three dimensional, as might be guessed. The scoring is different, with each player scoring positive points for the number of cubes visible from directly above the board. Negative points are earned for cubes left over as before. Since this is the one game in the series I haven’t played (though we do own it), I can’t say much more.

The two player rules for Blokus have each player using two of the four colors, as if there were two teams of two colors. A better approach is taken by the next game in the line to be published, Blokus Duo, which originally was named Travel Blokus. It is also sold exclusively at Target as Blokus to Go, which allows the pieces to actually snap in place for play in a moving vehicle. Regardless of the name, the difference between Blokus and Blokus Duo is merely the number of players and the start location. Duo is strictly a two-player game. This is my favorite form of the game. The board is smaller and makes for a very tight game.

Blokus does not play well with three players. Play starts from the corners, which means one player has an opponent on both sides; the others have opponents on one side only. The player in the middle is squeezed, and will nearly always do poorly. Blokus Trigon attempts to address this. The board and pieces are made of triangles rather than squares, which results in some strange shapes. The overall board shape is hexagonal, which allows three players to evenly space themselves out. There is equality with four players too, but the game tries to be a little too much. I, for one, have trouble visualizing what I want to do.

I can hear some of you thinking, “I need to buy THREE games, Blokus Duo for two, Blokus Trigon for three, and Blokus for four?!” No. Unless you really want to travel with it Blokus Duo isn’t needed. Many people play two player Blokus by using one color per player, and using a third color to fence of the board, reducing it to the size of Blokus Duo (14x14). Similarly, Blokus Trigon can be played with two colors and the two outer rings of spaces marked off on three sides. As for playing with three players, I would still play Blokus. Blokus Trigon is just too oddly shaped, and while it might be a more even game, it isn’t any more fun. Just buy and play the original Blokus with the strongest player in the squeezed position, or rotate through that position in several games of match play. Since the game plays in roughly 20-30 minutes, that’s a possibility. Therefore, while all of the variations are good, the original Blokus is the purchase to make.