My July gaming

When I actually looked at how many games I tried out in July, I was surprised. It wasn’t a crazy amount but it was a crazy month. (To be fair, I have a lot of crazy months)

Aquaducts was the only Print and Play game I put together in July. It’s also the only game I learned that I couldn’t play on a clipboard.

I have been playing a lot of In Hand games and Roll and Write games. And I love both those genres. But playing a tile-laying game for the first time in ages was very refreshing. I downright binged the game.

I also tried out a lot of games from Chris Anderson’s Tempus system. I am pretty sure that Tempus Infinitum is still in the prototype phase (and might not go beyond that) and was interesting but had issues. You could have setups that just don’t work.

I also played the first eight Tempus Quest episodes. Almost entirely on airplanes. The Tempus system games work well in limited spaces. No dice or cards. Just a pencil and a watch. The Tempus Quest games were better balanced than Tempus Imperium and explored what you could do when the system.

I didn’t think I was going to actually learn a Roll and Write game that actually used dice during July. Than I tried out Wheat & Ale and Rallytaire.

Wheat & Ale is about building an Arcadian community in a river valley. Very simple but I like how it isn’t just drawing stuff on a grid. There is actually a bit of engine building going on. 

And I finally have tried Rallytaire. It is like someone decided to remake Formula De as a Roll and Write that uses regular six-sided dice. For one player. I think there’s limited replay value but I love that it exists.

(I also wonder if you could revise it for multiplayer if you lived in a place where you can’t get Formula Dr)

I have no idea what August holds.

Tempus Quest and airplane travel

Part of my preparation for a trip, I printed off the first few episodes of Tempus Quest. It uses the same Tempus System as Tempus Imperium, where the time and date are used to set up the board and actions. 

I’d already played episode 0, the tutorial, but I decided to play it again so I could embrace the whole business of Tempus Quest being a campaign.

I had been playing Tempus Infinitum, a prototype for another Tempus system game. And that gave me appreciation for a couple of design choices on Tempus Quest.  One, the Tempus Quest games are more goal focused. That means fewer paths to victory but you know exactly what to plan for if you get a bad number string. And the Tempus Quest game gives you more starting  ‘money’ resource to change actions, which also helps compensate for a bad number.

Okay, here’s some more specific thoughts:

Episode 0 - Some Re-Assembly Required

Where you rebuild the spaceship Tempus.

My original impression was Episode 0 was that it was a tutorial that was so basic that it would be hard to fail. The ‘money’ is such a big supply, you can do any action at will. More than that, the Use action is very minimal, installing components as opposed to doing something.

Still, all it is is a tutorial. It teaches you how the date stamp mechanic works. But if this was it, Tempus Quest would get boring quick.

Episode 1 - Uninvited Guests

Where you fight robots and recharge the Tempus engine

And, bam, things get interesting. 

It uses a hex grid. The use action makes the things you build actually do something. You have to actually manage the money resource and make more of it. There’s a form of combat.

Episode 0, you had to actually have to intentionally make bad choices to lose. Episode 1 isn’t that hard but you have to put in some effort to play.

I played it and knew I was going to keep going.

Episode 2 - The Dust Farmers

Where you help irrigate farms.

Episode Two breaks less new ground. It’s all about infrastructure development. I still liked it and you actually have to generate two resources, water AND food. (Are these farmers doing anything?)

I also like that it offers two paths. If you can expand lakes, you build pumps and get tons of water. If you don’t get the lake expansion option, you can dig wells. Not as efficient but a viable option. And you aren’t gojng to mix and max those options.

Episode 2 is the closest thing to Tempus Imperium and a Euro game. Not sure why some mercenaries are better at agriculture than farmers though.

Episode 3 - Decision at Degma

Where you you use social networking to get a job

Episode 3 is where I feel Tempus Quest stepped away from from Tempus Imperium and did it’s own thing. Changing to developing social networks and connections isn’t mechanically different than other resources but it felt like it.

And the enemy action, instead of hitting your money resources, is enemies spreading over the board. That is a lot more aggressive. The challenge was definitely there.

This is also where the campaign feel for stronger since it sets up the next episode.

Episode 4 - The Degma Job

Where you actually do the job 

While you could pick any of the three jobs, if you are playing the game as a campaign, you use the one you gained in the last episode. It is your choice if you want to treat the series as a campaign but it is a choice.

This was fun. It took the elements that made Episode 3 interesting and harder and made it even more difficult. In particular, there wasn’t any kind of attack action so you just had to manage the enemy spread as best you could. (Of course, you also had to use the enemy as a resource lol)

I actually had to use every turn to complete Episode 4.

Conclusions

I kept hoping that someone would ask me on the airplane what I was doing so I could tell them it was a cross between Catan and a Crossword Puzzle. And that really does describe the experience.

There are definitely better R&Ws that use dice or cards. They just provide a wider range of options. But Tempus Quest was very good for the limited space of an airplane.

The introduction to Tempus Quest was too introductory

 Last month, I tried out Chris Anderson’s Tempus Imperium. It’s a PnP game where you use the date and time to set up the map and then create a list of actions. I knew Anderson had also made a series of other time stamp related games called Tempus Quest so I decided to try the first one.

(And THEN I learned that there was ANOTHER time stamp game, Tempus Infinitum, that looks like a refined version of Tempus Imperium)

Tempus Quest is a series of games or scenarios. After the introductory scenario, it looks like how you do in one scenario will effect what happens in the next one.

In Episode 0-Some Reassembly Required, you are attempting to rebuild a spaceship in a junkyard. Connect resources together to make parts and then connect them to the ship in the middle. There’s an alarm track. You check alarms off if you do something close to guard towers but you can also check them off to change your action.

Having learned Tempus Imperium first, Tempus Quest was really easy to pick up. And I have come to two conclusions.

One, Tempus Quest Episode 0 is probably the best introduction to the whole use-the-datestamp-to-generate-a-number-string idea. It uses a shorter number string and has a clear-cut goal with a clear-cut way to go about it.

Two, I liked Tempus Imperium more and I’m glad I started with it.

It isn’t so much that Episode 0 is flawed but that it hits the whole introductory thing a little too on the nose. Tempus Imperium has multiple paths to victory while Episode 0 has just one. In Tempus Imperium, you have to develop a good income. In episode 0, there’s a checklist of alarms to spend and there seems to be so many that you shouldn’t run out.

Really, I’m punishing Episode 0 for being exactly what it’s intended to be. It’s an introduction and a tutorial. Looking at the next couple episodes, it looks like the complexity level does go up.

But it did leave me wanting to play more Tempus Imperium.