My July Gaming

July was a solid month for learning games for me. I finished going through Dr. Finn’s Book of Solo Strategy and Word Games. I got in some play testing, which always feels like a privilege. And I learned some other games.

I learned:

My Perfect City (Dr. Finn)

Paper App Galaxy

Cosmic Run: Mission Run (Dr. Finn)

Aqua ROVE

ROVE JR

Aqua ROVE - Dangerous Depths expansion (playtest)

Monster Dinner Party 

Around the World in 10-15 Minutes (USA and Europe maps)

I’ve really enjoyed Dr. Finn’s book. The games are really strong for casual play. They don’t last longer than ten, fifteen minutes and they’re easy to learn. At the same time, they deliver a definite game. I’ve been going back to them and I think I will keep doing that.

However, exploring the ROVE family was my big July experience. As I’ve said, I appreciated the design of the original ROVE, I didn’t actually enjoy playing it. Since I decided to play test an Aqua ROVE expansion, I had to learn Aqua ROVE and I decided to learn JR as well.

Both Aqua and JR meaningfully shift the movement rules in a way that are easier for my brain to handle. Aqua ROVE is arguably harder than the original game but being able to process it makes it more fun. JR is simpler, enough that it’s now on my casual play list.

Although it’s not on the list, I also tried out the dice-free variant of Paper App Golf. I appreciate that it exists but, unsurprisingly, it removes everything that’s interesting about what is already a very simple game. Paper App Galaxy, on the other hand, promises to be an interesting campaign game.

With some games, after I’ve learned them, I figure out what I’ve learned from them and I’m done. Which isn’t that unreasonable with PnP and prototypes. But last month, just about everything I learned, I plan to go back to.

I like ROVE’s children better than I like ROVE

 I tried out ROVE (Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer) when it first came out because, quite frankly, Button Shy has had a very good track record for me when it comes to solitaire games. 

And I was left with two impressions. First, it was a terribly clever design. Second, I did not grok it. A game can be good and I cannot enjoy it and both those statements can be true.

In ROVE, you are trying to rearrange six module cards into different patterns and each card has its own kind of movement. (It was pointed out to me that Chess clearly influenced ROVE’s design, which turned out to be obvious when someone else pointed it out) You pay for action points by playing move cards and you try and complete seven patterns (the move and pattern cards do double duty), as well as have access to one-shot special powers on each of the module cards.

And don’t get me wrong, I think it is a good game but I am profoundly bad at it. I am so very bad at parsing it. 

I did back the Kickstarter for Rove’s two sister games, ROVE JR and Aqua ROVE, but I was in no hurry to try them out since ROVE hadn’t been engaging for me. However, when I finally did, I found both of them clicked for me much better.

Both games remove the chess-like element of each module having its own kind of movement. In JR, every module moves the same and in Aqua, the movement cards dictate how the modules will move. For whatever reason, that is much easier for me to understand. 

There are other differences. JR uses only four modules. Aqua’s patterns include requiring specific modules in specific positions. Every flavor of ROVE is distinct. I can see the value in owning all of them (of course, since I just buy the PnP files, the cost is minimal)

I can’t say that JR and Aqua have fired the original ROVE for me… because I wasn’t playing it. If anything, my enjoyment of them makes it more likely for me to revisit ROVE. 

Still, Aqua ROVE and, if I’m to be honest, ROVE JR in particular are games I want to keep playing.

My May Gaming

Okay, what interesting gaming things happened to me during May?

I continued my effort at learning at least new one Roll and Write a month with Mini Town from Dark Imp. It belongs to the draw-stuff-on-a-grid school of R&W. The number of Roll and Writes I’ve played like it is in the double digits and that’s just counting published games. Throw in design contest entries and it gets silly.

And, honestly, while I like how the symbols interact, it doesn’t do anything special from a gamer standpoint. However, one of the design goals was to work in the classroom or a similar environment and I think it checks several boxes there. So, mission statement accomplished.

I also learned ROVE, a solitaire game about rearranging cards in a pattern. I haven’t made up my mind about it. I’ve done horribly in my plays so far :D But a solitaire has to be tough to be worth replaying. So I think ROVE will end up being a good experience.

However, the most interesting thing that happened to me gamewise was mentoring a group of fifth graders playing D&D as part of my job as a substitute teacher. 

I went in afraid that it would be a ‘I cast magic missile at the darkness’ but honestly, the kids did a lot better than that. The kids needed a couple nudges to stay on track and to keep it clean but it went well. (And, no, I wasn’t the dungeon master)

It went a lot differently than my experiences playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was in fifth grade. I think video games and other media have given kids a better sense of how RPGs work. More than that, I think that fifth edition is both more user friendly and more balanced than first edition.

It reinforced my opinion that both players and publishers have really changed over the last forty years. And that’s a good thing.

So, May was pretty good.