Just Desserts is no Fluxx

 My journey with Just Desserts is more interesting than It has any right to be.

You see, at some point, Looney Labs was selling or giving away beta copies of the game. I want to say 2008 but I’m honestly not sure about that. It came as uncut sheets of cards.

Now, if I were to get something like that today. I would get out a paper cutter, cut everything out and laminate the lot. But when I got those sheets, that was completely outside my wheelhouse. So I just hung onto the sheets. I might even still have them somewhere. 

So it’s a game that I’ve been aware of and been interested in for a while. But it took the solitary option on Board Game Arena for me to actually try the game out.

The game consists of two decks of cards. One deck is deserts that each have one to four symbols. There are ten different symbols and are things like chocolate and nuts and spices and so on. The other deck is customers who each have specific symbol requirements, including sometimes having restrictions. Some folks are allergic to peanuts after all.

It’s a game about delivering orders. While every customer has a favorite desert that fills all their requirements, you’re usually going to have to use multiple cards to serve one customer.

I’m not bothering to go into much details it’s honestly a game that you can figure out how it works just by looking at the cards. 

I’m honestly of two minds about Just Desserts.

On the one hand, I think it has some legitimate mechanical issues. Ten symbols are a lot to juggle, particularly in a game this light. Ten symbols makes hand management mostly guess work. Being able to serve a customer becomes very luck based.

Comparing Just Desserts to Looney Labs’ flagship game Fluxx, a game famously random, I feel Just Desserts is more random with meaningfully less strategy. (Admittedly, one of the major strategies of Fluxx is churn through the deck but that’s still a strategy)

On the other hand, I do enjoy the process of the game and I like how intuitive the game play is. And I also like the card art. The game just has a good feel.

I will go back to it on BGA but if I were buying a Looney Labs card game, I’d pick a flavor of Fluxx I don’t have. That would have more success at the table.

Egyptian Solitaire and other pyramid thoughts

 The first activity I used the Pyramid Arcade for was playing Egyptian Solitaire. Honestly, I thought it would be Treehouse since I have a long, happy history with that game but there you have it.

Egyptian Solitaire is a Looney Pyramids variant of the classic peg solitaire. The twists are that the pyramid doing the jumping can land on another pyramid the same size or an empty space and the fact that each space has three pyramids to clear.

By the way, I am profoundly terrible at it. I do enjoy it and I can’t help but hope someday that something will click in my head and I will solve it. And it’s a perfect information puzzle so it is solvable.

The base version is a three by four grid but you can expand it it make it more difficult/interesting.

So, you use some stackable pyramids to recreate a puzzle that goes back to the 1600s, if Wikipedia is to be believed. (Since anyone can edit it, you should always have approach Wikipedia with a grain of salt) So the question is: does it do something unique that you’d need the pyramids for and is it any fun?

And I think the answer to that is yup.

Now, I wouldn’t buy a pyramid set just to play Egyptian Solitaire (I did buy both colors of Treehouse when they came out, just to make a comparison) It is a nice little something to do with pyramids you bought for other games though. (I will say that Food Chain Island is a vastly superior reinvention of the peg solitaire puzzle)

Egyptian Solitaire does highlight two elements of the Loony Pyramids and gaming systems in general. Does it let you play a game and do you need the game system to play it?

On one extreme, Ricochet Pyramids lets me play a game almost exactly like Ricochet Robots without the trouble of having that oversized box in my closet. However, I could use that rule set to play Ricochet Pyramids with some other bits. (I don’t but I could) On the other hand, I think it would be really hard to cobble together a Volcano set without anything other than the pyramids and I think that’s an absolute banger of a game.  

Egyptian Solitaire in no way reinvents any wheels but I do like an excuse to play with little plastic pyramids.

Looney Labs included the kitchen sink in Pyramid Arcade

 I recently made what I feel is one of my most indulgent game purchases in years, Looney Labs Pyramid Arcade. I had been interested in it ever since I saw the Kickstarter back in 2016.

After a regular deck of cards, the Looney Pyramids are my favorite game system. (Dominoes and the Decktet are pretty awesome too) I started playing with pyramids back when they were still called Icehouse (Get off my yard, you young whipper snappers! The gaming table’s in the house! Catan’s waiting for you)

And the reason why I didn’t get Pyramid Arcade right off the bat was, well, I basically owned almost everything that was in and could cobble together the rest. I had already bought at least one cache of every color that Looney Labs had made and I did back the Kickstarter at a level to get the new one.

However, if there is one flaw in the system (and this is a very subjective flaw), it is that the pyramids don’t really stand alone. Almost every game requires some additional components. A board, some cards of some , dice, etc. I don’t consider this to be a legitimate failing. Yes, you can play hundreds of games with just a deck of cards but purity of gam system definition doesn’t actually affect function.

Even more than I had originally believed, Pyramid Arcade collects everything and the kitchen sink in one box. It includes ten different boards (I’m counting double sided boards as two boards), nine dice, two decks of cards, a drawstring bag and a chunky player token.

And yeah, years before the Pyramid Arcade came out, I put together in my own pyramid kit. But Looney Lab made a better one. 

So, while it’s easy to argue that I didn’t need to buy Pyramid Arcade (and even easier to argue you don’t need to buy any games lol), it’s going to be fun to have it around

My inner game snob can’t beat Treehouse

One game, or really a game system, that was never in danger of being purged from my collection is IceHouse/Treehouse/Looney Pyramids. Yes, back in my day, we bought pyramids in sets of fifteen in tubes that didn’t come with any rules!

I feel a very important milestone in the system’s history was Treehouse. While boxes sets had existed before (I have copies of Ice Towers and the original Zendo and I understand one of the earliest releases was The Martian Chess Set), Treehouse was an accessible, low price point entry into the system.

Looking back, one of the last times I really wrote about Treehouse was ten years ago. Where I dismissed it as too light and random while also admitting that I played the heck out of it with a wide variety of places and people. Man, I can be a game snob!

Some years in between, I was at a convention where I met James Ernest of Cheapass fame, which was the same convention where I learned he was a real person. He commented on how some designers were surprised that there was a market for a family of pub games like Pairs. (He said this in a tone that clearly said that some people need to get out more)

That comment has stuck with me. Moving away from my old group in Illinois that focused on new and increasingly complex games made me realize that there was a world of causal games and gaming out there that was clearly doing well enough to be profitable. A world of gaming that had more people in it than the insular gaming world I’d been living in.

And Treehouse totally fits in that paradigm, part of the world of casual gamers and family games and pub games. Heck, all the pieces are waterproof and a game doesn’t take up a lot of space so it checks off some important pub game boxes. And it works very well for all kinds of audiences.

While I think that the earlier pyramid games Volcano and Zendo have aged well and are brilliant (particularly Zendo), Treehouse was a more accessible entry point. A ine tube game for everyone.I believe it helped the pyramid brand grow.

I ought to get it out again.

Zendo with magnetic tiles?

While watching our son play with Picasso Tiles (which are colorful, plastic magnetic tiles), I keep thinking how perfect they would be to play Zendo with.

Now, I am well aware that you can play Zendo with anything. There are tales from the olden days of people playing Zendo with pocket change. I could take all the different bottles of cleaner from under the kitchen sink and use them to play Zendo. The question isn’t what is possible but what is reasonable.

Even someone as DIY as me is not going to be thrilled with the idea of dumping out a waste paper basket to play a deduction game. Just because you _can_ do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. You have to sell the idea of playing a game to an audience of potential players. Nifty retro plastic pieces, they can sell the idea of playing Zendo. Crumpled paper, used up pens and empty chip bags, they don’t.

I like to think of myself as a purist who could play a game with rubbish but I’d be lying about if I said I want to. There is no escaping presentation.

At the same time, I’m not saying you have to only play Zendo or similar games with the official components. With a set of tools with a good aesthetic, the game can be engaging. And with tools like Picasso Tiles, you have something functional and aesthetically pleasing to make Zendo koans with. 

It might be a while before I can ‘borrow’ his Picasso Tiles for Zendo though.

Cosmic Coasters - war, abstract, weird

I recently tried out a game that was nothing more than Rock-Paper-Scissors with a different theme. Which really wasn’t worth it. However, it got me thinking about how Rock-Paper-Scissors can be a good starting point. 

No, I am not yet talking about Hoity Toity by Klaus Teuber. Which is an absolutely brilliant game and part of what makes it brilliant is the Rock-Paper-Scissors style of hidden decision. No, I’m thinking about Cosmic Coasters, which isn’t as brilliant as Hoity Toity but still takes Rock-Paper-Scissors to a higher level.

It’s Looney Labs game, which is how I ended up finding out about and getting it very early in my collecting. It’s closer to the Looney Pyramids end of spectrum than Fluxx. It’s an abstract war game that is printed on beer coasters. (You supply your own pieces. Glass beads seem to be a popular choice.)

It was actually one of the first games I wrote a review about : https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/74545/cosmic-coasters which also covers the rules pretty well.

Each coaster serves as a player’s board/base/planet/moon which is made up of different types of spaces, including the ability teleport your pieces to the other boards. You win by taking over an opponent’s board to the degree you can teleport a piece home.

It’s actually an oddly intricate game for an abstract that takes about ten minutes to play. You need to occupy three spaces to build a new piece and occupy three other spaces to teleport a piece in the middle and there are optional special powers.

When I think of abstracts, I tend to think of the Go model of simple rules with complex decision trees. Cosmic Coasters doesn’t fit that model very well :D It definitely has its own feel.

The Rock-Paper-Scissors combat where the defender winning just pushing the attacker back helps the game balance. A more straightforward capture-by-moving-onto-another-piece would lead to stalemates.

That said, Rock-Paper-Scissors, particularly over several rounds, isn’t a random system. It’s a psychological game. Which means Cosmic Coasters can tilt to one player’s advantage easily but not by chance.

As time has gone on, my interest in Cosmic Coasters has waned. Even in the Looney Lan catalog, there are better abstract war games like Sandships or World War III or Homeworlds. However, it is both a good use of Rock-Paper-Scissors and really distinct.

Fluxx goes to school

While I appreciate Fluxx and I continue to play Fluxx, I haven't been inclined to buy a new version in quite a few years. It is interesting when they throw in some new mechanics but lets be honest. The structure and the system of Fluxx pretty much remains the same.

In fact, the two versions I've played the most, other than the original deck which I bought and played until it practically fell apart are Family Fluxx and Zombie Fluxx. Family Fluxx is the simplest version with the smallest deck so it's the easiest way to make sure you get in a quick game. Zombie Fluxx, which introduced Creepers, was the first one that really felt thematic for me.

But two of the upcoming versions of Fluxx really interest me. Math Fluxx and Chemistry Fluxx. Versions of Fluxx that are specifically designed to be educational.

(Looney Labs is also reprinting Stoner Fluxx and coming out with Drinking Fluxx under their new imprint that is specifically for older players. While neither of those topics offend me, I do like that they are under this new Fully Baked line. That seems very responsible to me and respectful of their audience)

I am very curious to see how this plays out and how well it does teaching either of these topics. Chemistry in particular. Any time you look at a game that's supposed to be educational, the two questions that you have to ask are "Is this a game I would ever want to play?" and "Does it really teach anything?"

And, yes, I'm going to wait and read reviews before I get either of those games. Although I was planning on buying no new games in 2017 so I'd be waiting until 2018 anyway.

I really am curious. While it had a reputation about being random, Fluxx really isn't a random game per se. It's not a game where you are making up rules. It is definitely not Nomic, which is _the_ game of creating rules. Instead, Fluxx has a very distinct framework and playing the game is using that framework. So it definitely has the potential to be educational.

Mind you, Nature Fluxx already tackled being educational back in 2005. I found it interesting but it didn't challenge Family or Zombie Fluxx for plays. But I think Math or Chemistry might be more suitable for Fluxx's framework.

Of course, I'm a dad now. My son is still a toddler, which means he's not ready for Fluxx. After all, you have to be able to read :P But will games like Math Fluxx or Chemistry Fluxx be educational and fun to him in the future?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/8/fluxx

Looney Labs sent one heck of a holiday gift this year

I've been on Looney Labs Holiday Gift list since...2005. Wow.

And, up until this point, my favorite holiday gift from Looney Labs has been the 2008 World War 5, because using the pyramids to play a simplified Risk just tickled my fancy. 

But the 2016 Holiday present of Sandships is a new high park for me. 

Sandships is a light war game/area of control game. You build towers in Martian cities and fight with the title Sandships on a claustrophobic board. While your options are determined by specialty dice, there is a wild face and other ways of getting wilds so you actually have a lot of flexibility.

It also came with stickers so you could turn three playing dice into lightning dice, which are part of the Pyramid Arcade set. Since I have so far decided against getting that, since I have tons and tons of pyramids already, that is a really nice bonus.

But here is the real reason I was so thrilled when I open the mailbox.

One of the prototypes that Andy Loney showed us Looney Lab fans at Rincon was Sandships. And I got to play it three times in a row, with two, three and four players. And I had a really great time, despite getting crushed every game.

So I knew exactly what was in the envelope and it was something that I had had a lot of fun with.

It is always fun to get one of Looney Labs' holiday gifts. But this year, it was the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas and the crocodile's suitcase.

Aquarius - a simple, cute game that I've been playing for over ten years

While Fluxx is the flagship of Looney Labs and the Looney Pyramid system is their signature item, Aquarius is the little card game that has kept on trucking along since 1998. 

I picked up my first copy of Aquarius before I even started collecting games seriously. And I've been playing Aquarius off and on ever since then.

Aquarius is a game of hidden goals, laying out cards like dominos and a certain amount of chaos.

The original artwork of Aquarius  is a colorful series of retro art images of the four different elements, plus outer space. It looks like something out of the Yellow Submarine. There is also a dragon themed version of the art but I like the extra groovy original artwork. 

 

The deck is made up of goal cards, action cards and element cards. Even the later addition, which adds a number of cards, is easily small enough to fit into a coat pocket.

At the start of the game, everyone is dealt a random goal card. The card shows one of the five elements. You win the game by connecting seven symbols of the element on your goal card.

Everyone gets a handle of three and a turn consists of drawing a card and playing a card.

The element cards make up most of the game. You lay them out in the grid, as if they were dominoes. When you place an element card, at least one symbol on the card has to touch another symbol that's already in play. Only edges, diagonals don't count.

The action cards are where things get really crazy. The action cards let you move cards, swap hands with another player, or change the goal cards around. That last part is particularly important, since that means your goal might change during the game.

As I already mentioned, when you can trace the path of seven symbols that match your goal card, you win.

Aquarius is a very colorful game, as well as a game plays pretty quick. However, it's virtue that has proved the most important for me is that it is very accessible.

While I do like Fluxx, it's ever changing rules can be hard for some folks to enjoy or even grasp. By playing with some of the basic paradigms of games, Fluxx can be a hard sell.

In comparison, it's really easy for me to teach Aquarius. Just about anyone can grasp it. The fact that it is colorful and pretty only helps.

That is why Aquarius has often ended up in my game bag when I've been to going to conventions or such. It isn't always there, like Pico 2 or Slide 5, but it often gets packed and regularly gets played.

I know that Aquarius is going to stay in my collection. I also know that it will be a race between Aquarius and Treehouse to see what Looney Lab game my son plays first.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/814/aquarius

Pyramid Arcade funded with flying colors

It isn't a surprise that the Arcade Pyramid got funded, seeing as how it matched its funding goal on day one. Additional stretch goals, like reprinting the Looney Labs chess board bandana and thirty extra pyramids (so you can play games like Zendo or Pikeman) were reached. So, it was a smashing success and Looney Labs has a good history as a company so I'm confident in the project getting fulfilled.

I do have to admit that I backed it at a lower level, in part to get the special green pyramids and in part to simply show my support and be a part of the project. I already have well over two hundred pyramids and pretty much every additional accessory for them that had been already produced, including the bandana. :D

In fact, I bought the boxed sets of Ice Towers and Zendo back when they were being produced. Zendo, in particular, has served as a great tool box for the pyramids. (The color contrast in that color set is better for my color-blindness) The Pyramid Arcade is the super-sized version of that.

Honestly, while I have always been a big fan of the pyramid system, the Pyramid Arcade project has reminded me just how much you can do with it. The part of me that loves researching print and play projects loves the system because it lets me explore new games all the time. And I am sure the Pyramid Arcade only encourage more development.

It has even made me end my hiatus on Superduper Games, since there are pyramid games on that site. (I have no issues with the site. I think it's amazing place to play some very unusual abstracts. I just periodically take breaks from it.)

I have had many years of good play from the pyramid system. I think that the Pyramid Arcade is only going to spark more interest in the system and encourage more games to be developed.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187988/pyramid-arcade

http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Zendo is the best pyramid game

I have played a lot of games over the years with the Looney Pyramids. Hands down, the best game I have played has been Zendo. As far as I am concerned, it is the crowning jewel of the system. I have played it in many different settings with many different groups and it has never failed to be a hit.

I was once teaching it at a meetup group and an observer said 'So it's like Mastermind with Tetris pieces?' and I turned to her and said 'it is EXACTLY like that' 

Zendo belongs to the school of deduction games where one person comes up with a code or rule and everyone else has to figure it out. Mastermind is the defining game of the genre but Zendo blows every other game of its type out of the water.

One player will take the role of code maker or master. Everyone else will be their students or code breakers. The master will come up with a rule about the Buddha and then build two dioramas called koans out of the pyramids , one that demonstrates the rule and one that does not.

The rule really can be virtually anything. It can relate to the colors of pyramids, the number of pyramids, the orientation of pyramids, the size of the pyramids or any combinations of them. For instance, a rule could be that a koan has the Buddha nature if it has a large blue pyramid pointing up.

Students take turns building koans of their own and then asking the master either master or mondo. If they ask master, the master simply marks if the koan follows  the rule or not. Mondo has all the students guess what the master's answer will be before the master marks the koan. Everyone who guesses right gets a guessing stone.

At the end of a student's turn, they can turn in a guessing stone to guess  the Buddha's nature. If they get the rule right, they win. Otherwise, the master will build another koan that demonstrates the student's rule but still does not have the Buddha's nature.

Zendo is an amazing gaming experience, unlike anything else I've played and I've played a lot. While there is a 'winning' condition and it can be seen as competitive, I've always found it turns into a cooperative experience. And unlike cooperative games like Pandemic, it isn't about tension but exploration and discussion.

The master's goal isn't to stump the students. Trust me, that wouldn't be a challenge. The master's goal is to challenge and engage the students. The students are going to inevitably work together, whether they intend to or not since every turn gives new information. In almost every game I've played in, it has become intentional.

Zendo is really about communication. A game of Zendo is a conversation between the master and the students, as well as the students with each other. That gives the entire game a vibe that is unique.

You can play Zendo with just about everything. I've read about people using pocket change to play it or words or even emoticons. However, the pyramids are a very good way to play Zendo. They create a striking visual look. More importantly, they create a distinct language to have the conversation with.

Zendo is an impressive game. Each piece of the game is designed to help people not just explore reasoning but communication. Other deduction games, like Clue or Sleuth, are about find answers. Zendo is about talking to each other.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6830/zendo

http://www.looneylabs.com/rules/zendo

Volcano, one of the classics of Looney Pyramids

If there is a game that truly embraces the unique nature of the Looney Pyramids, it is Volcano.

There are a lot of abstract strategy games in the Looney Pyramid catalog. A good chunk of the early games, for instance most of the games in Playing with Pyramids, are pure abstract strategy games without any random elements.

Played out on a five by five grid, Volcano is a game about collecting sets of pyramids by strategically causing volcano eruptions. Some years ago, I wrote a fairly detailed review and rules summary : https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/202091/very-unconventional-abstract Looking back at it, I have to say that Volcano is much easier to demonstrate than to explain.

The thumbnail sketch of Volcano is that you move the volcano caps around to cause eruptions, which are basically the pyramids playing hopscotch. When a pyramid lands on another pyramid the same size, you get to keep that pyramid for scoring. You get extra points collecting  a trio of the same color and when someone gets a pyramid in every color, the game ends.

There is definitely a learning curve to Volcano. As I said, actually understanding how the game works mechanically doesn't seem to click until you see the game in action. The next part of the learning curve is figuring out how to set up good moves :D

Volcano is a game that really requires the stacking nature of the pyramids, as well as three different sizes. It clearly was developed out of the very nature of the pyramids. Plus, there's no denying that, as abstract as it is, the pyramids help it live up to the Volcano name.

Plus, Volcano is a very solid game. Definitely forces you to think in different ways so it is intellectually challenging. At the same time, causing eruptions and collecting colorful pyramids is an off a lot of fun. For such a different game, it's an easy one to get people interested.

I've been playing Volcano for years. Sadly, not regularly enough to get really good at it but I keep coming back to it. I consider it one of the games that really elevated the Looney Pyramid system, a game I'd buy and keep playing even if it was the only game in the system.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13084/volcano

http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Volcano

Treehouse was the killer ap for Loony Pyramids

When discussing the Looney Pyramids, it's impossible to not touch on Treehouse because it was an important change in the way that the system was sold and marketed.

When Looney Labs rose from the ashes of IcehouseGames, they needed a lower cost product since they needed to work up to the production costs of the pyramids. Andy Looney came up with Fluxx, which became their flagship game.

In a lot of ways, Treehouse was meant to pull a similar trick.

Before treehouse, the primary way to get the pyramids was in colored caches of fifteen. Both Ice Towers and Zendo came in boxed sets but it was a lot easier to find the caches. The problem was that you needed multiple caches to play virtually anything and the caches themselves didn't come with any rules.

So if you wanted to get into the pyramids, you had to invest in multiple sets, along with digging up the rules. Mind you, that wasn't a problem for me. By the time treehouse came out, I have gotten every single color that was available and bought the Playing with Pyramids book of rules. But I am kind of crazy that way.

What Treehouse did was give you a low price entry point into the world of pyramids. You got fifteen pyramids divided into five colors (so you got one of each size in each color), a die and the rules to Treehouse. Instead of buying a bunch of parts, you bought a complete game.

Treehouse was a pretty simple game. Everyone got one trio of pyramids, with an extra one set in the middle in the treehouse formation. On you were turned, you would roll the die in the results would give you different ways of moving your own pyramids, with your goal to have your pyramids matching the treehouse.

(I wrote a review of the game shortly after it came out which describes the rules in greater detail: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/121940/ever-changing-treehouse-icehouse)

Treehouse didn't just represent a new way to package the pyramids. It also showed a new philosophy for the game design. Before Treehouse, most of the pyramid games were pure abstracts. Treehouse is a quick, luck-filled little filler.

And, as near as I can tell, Treehouse did succeed at being a killer app for the pyramids. Treehouse is still in print after 10 years and has had several different editions. In general, I've seen the different forms of pyramids sold in more stores than I did back in 2006.

Compared to a number of other pyramid games, Volcano and Zendo in particular, Treehouse doesn't seem that strong to me. It really is just a little time filler with the die often forcing you to make choices you'd rather not make.

But... I have gotten a lot of games of Treehouse in over the years. 15 little plastic pier meds and one plastic guy makes for a game that you can carry in play just about anywhere. You don't have to worry about it getting wet or muddy so it's perfect for restaurants and coffee shops and picnics.

So maybe my inner game snob just to has to own up to the fact that it is a fun little game.

And there is no is no denying that Treehouse helped spread the pyramid system and helped make it more mainstream.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21955/treehouse

http://www.looneylabs.com/looney-pyramids

Pikemen: a traditional game done in pyramids

Since I've already written about Martian Chess, I feel like I should also talk about Pikemen, the Looney Pyramid game that most closely resembles Chess.

Pikemen first came out in 1997, which makes it one of the older pyramid games. (I personally mark 2006, when Treehouse came out, as one of the major milestones of the pyramid system) And, more than any other pyramid game I've played, it is the one that most closely resembles a classic abstract.

The game is pretty simple. Everyone gets a set of pyramids, made up of all three sizes (they come in big, medium and small, by the way) The number of pyramids and the board layout depends on the number of players. You can even use some quickly rhombus-shaped pieces for unusual numbers, like three players.

On your turn, you can do two different actions. You can align a pyramid, pointing it in any direction (including up and the diagonals) or you can move a pyramid. Pyramids can only move in the direction that they are pointing and realign after they stop. They can move any number of spaces but they can't jump over another piece.

But they can capture. You can capture any piece if they are on their side, in the moving and attacking position. However, if a piece is pointing up, it is defending and can only be captured by a larger pyramid. So a big pyramid that's pointing up can't be captured at all.

Every captured pyramid is worth points, one to three depending on their size. The first player to get to twelve points wins the game.

There are two rules that make a critical difference in the play of Pikeman (because games about moving and capturing pieces are pretty common but all too many aren't that good) First of all, being able to reorient a piece after moves is big. It effectively gives you two moves in one, which makes the game a lot more dynamic.

Second, you don't play until someone runs out of pieces. You play to twelve points. That definitely makes the game shorter than it would be and it also helps make it more dynamic. Pikemen isn't about defending. It's about attacking.

Like I wrote earlier, Pikemen feels like a much more traditional game than most of the games in the Looney Pyramid system. If someone told me it was adapted from an earlier, nineteenth century abstract, I wouldn't be surprised. It's also not the kind of abstract that I personally go looking for. After I got into Go, I've been more interested in abstracts build around placement than movement.

All that said, Pikemen is a solid game. It offers plenty of choices and surprisingly dynamic play. Not every pyramid game has to invent a new kind of wheel. Some can just offer good play.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20269/pikemen

A knife fight in a phone booth that keeps shrinking

I really like Branches and Twigs and Thorns more than I should. It's one of the slightly obscure Looney Pyramid games. By slightly obscure, I mean it isn't one of the big ones like Volcano or Treehouse or Zendo but it's generally agreed that it doesn't stink.

Admittedly, one of the things that is a blow against Branches and Twigs and Thorns is that it was originally billed as the pyramid version of Go and that is a comparison that it just can't live up to. Go is a colossal game in so many ways. Branches and Twigs and Thorns is a quick little abstract that has only sixteen spaces on the board per player.

So let's not compare it to Go. Let's call Branches and Twigs and Thorns a quick little abstract that has a bit of a knife fight in a phone booth going on. And when you look at it from that angle, it looks a whole lot better.

Branches and Twigs and Thorns is a two or four player game that uses either a checkerboard or half a checkerboard, depending on the number of players. Depending on the number of players, the game begins with placing one or two roots and one or two nulls. After that, players take turns placing one of their fifteen pyramids in open spaces.

Branches and Twigs and Thorns takes advantage of the fact that the pyramids are pyramids by requiring you to leave them on their side so that they're always pointing. They must always be pointing to either a root or another pyramid. They can never point to a null.

If you are pointing at a root or one of your own pyramids, everything is fine. However, when you point at another player’s pyramids, they gain points equal to the size of your pyramid and you lose points equal to the size of their pyramid. And the board is so cramped and claustrophobic that someone is eventually going to have to break down and point at someone else's pyramid.

The game ends when you fill the board, which is going to use up all the pyramids as well, by the way. At that point, whoever has the most points is the winner!

Most of my games of Branches and Twigs and Thorns have been two player. Those games have felt like both players were trying to get the other player in a Go ladder.

I once described Branches and Twigs and Thorns as having one or two major decisions per game. I was wrong about that. Branches and Twigs and Thorns is a game that has one or two confrontations. All of your decisions are working up to that confrontation. It's not just a knife fight in a phone booth. It's all about being the one who is able to stab the other guy.

Branches and Twigs and Thorns isn’t a life changing, amazing abstract. However, I do like how it’s a fast, little dynamic game, every move quickly pushing you towards that inevitable confrontation.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17298/branches-and-twigs-and-thorns

Martian Chess showed me the secret of the pyramids

Martian Chess was the first game that really got me into the Looney Pyramid system.

At the time, a lot of my experience with Looney Labs have been through Fluxx and Aquarius. Which are still games that I do enjoy but the pyramids and Martian Chess definitely opened up a different side of the company to me.

Fluxx is, of course, a very random game and Aquarius, while it is solid, is still very light. Martian Chess, on the other hand, is an abstract with no random elements whatsoever. It has some definite depth and strategy.

I did a fairly detailed review of the game about eleven years ago (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/82875/game-changing-pieces-and-shifting-ground) but here's a general overview. You have three different pieces with different movements, up to the Queen who moves like a chess queen. Captured pieces go in your score pile with the most points winning.

Ah, but there's a clever bit and it's a good one. No one owns any particular pieces per se. Instead, you own part of the board and every piece on your part is under your control. (And, no, you can't capture your own pieces. Thanks for trying) So every piece you use to capture then belongs to an opponent. 

Oh and there are a wide variety of board layouts to accommodate different numbers of players. Personally, I prefer a simple four by eight two-player game but it's cool how many options there are. The boards made out of rhombuses are neat.

All that said, the sparkle has worn off Martian Chess for me since I wrote that review in 2005. It became too easy for games to descend into almost null moves, making stalemates. (I have read suggestions on how to deal with that, including the first player to eighteen points winning, since they have the majority of the possible points and will win anyway)

I also got into Go which changed my tastes in abstracts. I came to like stones on the board with the flow of the game always mov my forward more than moving pieces.

I also went on to learn other pyramid games that are, quite frankly, better. Volcano, as a clear example, is another pure abstract that is a better game and makes better use of the unique nature of the pyramids.

Still, Martian Chess is an interesting game. Players owning the board, not the pieces is a very neat idea. And it did help me get into the pyramids, which has never stopped being rewarding.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19803/martian-chess