Is Spree Ameritrash?

Looking at James Ernst’s Spree (a game I have owned forever but never played), I found myself asking where Cheapass Games fall in the world of Ameritrash as a genre. Well, at least this Chrapass game.

I mean, Spree is thematic. It’s about burgling a mall. It’s got conflict. You are shooting at each other for crying out loud. There is take-that. You’re grabbing each other’s stuff. And it’s random.

That sure sounds like Ameritrash to me!

But if Fantasy Flight has taught me anything, it’s that chrome matters. And, even by the standards of Cheapass Games, Spree comes with less chrome than a garden rock.

(Of course, you could bling it out like no one’s business. So it’s no one’s fault but yours if there isn’t any chrome so stop blaming James Ernst!)

But I think that arguing production values define a game, rather than define its price, seems like a bad argument. The Grand Guignal experience may be a part of many Ameritrash games but I’m going to argue it’s not a requirement. Theme and interaction are more important. And Spree clearly has that going on.

I’m certainly not arguing that all Cheap Ass games are Ameritrash. James Ernst’s games fall into a lot of different categories. I suspect his design goals were fun and sales. However, some, like Spree do fit.

From what I’ve read, if you actually play Spree and can see past the production values, it’s a solid beer and pretzels game. And I’m pretty sure that the board is free to download so actually making a copy would be easy.

I still think I’d need some bling to get people to play.

Bitin’ Off Hedz - not a good game but maybe a good learning curve

Bitin’ Off Hedz is definitely in the running  for the worst Cheapass Game I’ve experienced. 

It came out in 1996 and I think that James Earnst was still  finding his bearings. We had already gotten Kill Doctor Lucky, so there was the  promise of things to come.

The theme of the game is that you are all dinosaurs who are all so bored that you’ve decided to race to the volcano to throw yourself in. By Cheapass standards, that’s pretty normal.

Anyway, at the end of the day, it’s a roll and move game where you can sometimes throw rocks at other pawns that makes them go back to start and optional powers depending on what kind of plastic dinosaur you’re using for your pawn. When one of the main twists in the rules is getting forced back to start, that isn’t a good rule in my book.

The selling point (?) of the game is that the board is huge. It’s made of sixteen sections that you have to hold together (post it notes on the underside are recommended) and is close to three feet long. The completed board shows a winding path that forms the shape of a dinosaur skull.

Back in 1996, Bitin’ Off Hedz was an ambitious physical design, particularly for a self-publisher. Time has not been kind. Sixteen black and white pages of illustration on poor quality paper falls short of even PnP standards, particularly paired with a subpar rules.

However, these days, I am more forgiving of Bitin’ Off Hedz. Not in and of itself but for its place in the history of Cheapass Games. I knew it was an early game but I hadn’t realized how early it was when I first tried it.

From that standpoint, I view the game as an experiment, James Ernst still figuring out what would work with the Cheapass format. I find it telling that the next time he made a roll-and-move game, Devil Bunny Needs A Ham, it was smaller, quirkier and a much tighter design. Multiple pawns and a claustrophobic board, that game offers more choices on top of a really silly theme.

Bitin’ Off Hedz isn’t a good game. But it may have been a necessary step to figuring out what makes Cheapass work.

Tak: the reality behind what was fiction

Tak belongs to that curious family of games that were fictional and someone decided to make real. The game was mentioned in Patrick Rothfuss's The Wise Man's Fear and James Ernst made the game real.

The object of the game is to build a road across the board. You can place your stones on the board either flat as flagstones or on their sides as walls. You can move an already placed flagstone one space, including on top of another flagstone. You cannot move onto a wall but walls cannot move and do not count as part of the road.

Both players get a special piece called the capstone. It is the only piece that can flatten a wall and nothing can be put on top of the capstone.

There is also a special rule for moving a stack of pieces. The person on top, controlling the stack, can move the stack more than one space but they have to leave the bottom piece behind after the first move. It's rather like sowing in Mancala. 

I will be honest. I wasn't terribly interested in Tak when I first heard about it. I do love me some abstracts something fierce but I didn't feel like it offered me anything I hadn't seen before. I have played some really good modern abstracts but I've also played some pretty bad ones too.

But there was a giant set of Tak at Rincon 2016 and I saw in steady use so I ended up giving it a go. And then ended up playing the game three more times.

I know Tak is supposed to feel like a game that's been around for generations and it has a bit of that feel. However, what really

stood out for me was how intuitive it felt. I was able to pick it up and make more experienced players sweat for their wins.

There are some very interesting choices. Using a stone as a wall is a good blocking move but it doesn't help you build your road. The capstone is a strong piece but it has to enter the game on an empty space, like any other space. And getting it out telegraphs how you will use it.

One part of the game that I still have a long ways to really get a good handle on is the sowing move. Building up a stack and being able to effectively make a whole bunch of move is very strong and great stepped into to make that big, dramatic move. But you have to work your way there.

And there is also a strong alternate game ending condition. If you place all your stones first, you lose. That adds tension to the game as well as a timer. If your opponent forces you to place stones, it puts you on the defensive on a couple levels.

Tak doesn't quite make the top tier of modern abstracts for me. Games like the GIPF Project or the Blokus Family or Hive have set a very high standard for me. However, it is definitely a second tier game. It is easy to pick up and understand but it has enough depth to reward continued play and exploring the game. 

The game hasn't actually come out yet but everything I need to know about making my own copy is available. And I am planning on doing that.

http://cheapass.com/free-games/tak/

My Rincon 2016 experiences

Every year since we've moved to Tucson, I've attended Rincon, the friendly little gaming convention that is Tucson's own. I think it's actually Arizona's only gaming convention. And every year, it seems to have gotten better, both my personal experiences and in general.

This is the first year at its new location. I'd already attended two fundraisers for Rincon at the new hotel but the actual convention made me like it even more. In particular, the hotel shares its parking lot with two restaurants, which was great.

I won't be surprised if this Rincon had record attendance. My experiences with the volunteers was very positive. They were friendly, always eager to help and, most importantly, seemed to know what they were doing.

The guests included Andrew Looney of Looney Labs and James Ernst of Cheapass Games. Both of those companies were a big part of me getting into board games and I still really appreciate what they do, particularly for casual gamers and family gamers. 

I've gotten into the habit of registering for events instead of looking for pick-up games since we've moved out here and I don't have a posse of friends from nearby states to serve as an automatic gaming group. It doesn't hurt that it's usually free to register for events it's more cons.

In fact, this year, I was afraid that I had signed up for too many events. Instead, it proved to be a great idea. I was able to keep busy and every event was fun.

In addition to learning Isle of Skye right at the start, I attended events hosted by James Ernst and Andy Looney and played in two tournaments. Heck, I placed second in the Carcassonne tournament on Sunday, although lucky draws of cloisters probably had more to do with it then any brilliance on my part. 

In fact, the only pick up games I got in were ones with the giant set of Tak in one of the free play areas. I had kind of followed its development because I get the Cheapass newsletter but it proved to be a much better abstract then I ever expected. Making my own copy is now on the shortlist of games to make.

I have to note that talking with designers at smaller conventions gives you a much bigger chance to have a real conversation with them. I also got to talk with David Short, who designed Automobiles and Skyline and is a Tucson local.

In the past, I've only spend an afternoon at Rincon between the age of our toddler and the further distance of the old location. I was there for most of Saturday and part of Sunday this year and it was bustling and fun the entire time.

How Falling brought me into real time games

Falling was one of the first, probably the very first, designer game that I discovered that used real time as an element. That is to say, a game without turns where everyone can do something at anytime.

James Ernst, the man who gave the world Devil Bunny Needs a Ham, is famous for his absurd themes and Falling does not disappoint. You are all falling and you are trying to be the last person to hit the ground. Not much of a goal but it's not like you have a lot of time to come up with a better one.

The game consists of a deck of cards. One courageous soul must choose to not be my seriously hurtling towards the Earth and be the dealer. (Wait a second? Choose NOT to fall to your doom? Make that one cowardly soul) They remove the five ground cards, shuffle the rest of the deck and put the ground cards on the bottom. Reasonably enough, you don't hit the ground until the end of the game.

Everyone else will be developing a stack of cards in front of them. The dealer will be dealing out a card to every stack in the game, over and over again, working their way down to the grounds on the bottom. The dealer controls the tempo of the game and they don't have to go too fast for things to be frantic.

The players can play the top card on their stack, using only one hand. If you pick up that card, you have to use it before you can pick up another card.

The cards are either riders or actions. You slap a rider in front of someone, including yourself. They can make the dealer skip someone or deal an extra card or even start a new stack in front of someone. The dealer then sweeps away the rider, leaving an open space for a new one. Actions let you steal or push away riders, as well as the powerful stop card that destroys a rider or causes a ground card to back on the deck.

Because if a ground card lands on your stack, that's it. Game over and you are a pancake. If the dealer somehow runs out of ground cards, they just point and say ground. There's no getting away from gravity.

Like I said, the goal of the game is to be the last person to pancake. You still hit the ground, of course, but you will be the happiest person-shaped hole in the ground.

I have played a number of real time games since I discovered Falling but I have not seen another that uses an objective third party moderator like the dealer, who acts like a dungeon master in this one-way adventure down the gravity well. It gives the game very unique and interesting feel.

And Falling is a unique experience. It is a quirky but fun game, definitely falling on the frantic party game side of the spectrum. I picked it up over 10 years ago and it has remained in my collection.

Falling is far from the final word in real time game if it was a pretty good first word for me.

http://www.cheapass.com/freegames/falling

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/75/falling