I fail at Abstract classification

I have this really silly tendency to divide abstracts up into putting pieces on the board and moving pieces on the board. 

Which is nonsense as a taxonomy. Not only are there abstracts where you do both, like Hive (or ZERTZ or Amazons or Six or YINSH or...), there are games where neither term really fits. The Mancala family really doesn’t fit the concept of moving pieces on a board, for instance. It’s its own thing. And an abstract like Zendo is completely off the grid.

I think the reason I tend to do this is because I have found that I like putting stones down more than moving stones. I admire Chess but I don’t really have any desire to play it. I admire Go and I do want to play it more. There’s a number of reasons but putting stones down is just more satisfying for me.

I don’t think it’s the biggest reason anymore but this tendency started for me because putting stones down also acts as a timer. You know the maximum number of moves in a game. Someone once wrote Othello was a great game for kids before bedtime since it had a predictable time frame.

However, stones on the board also lets you see the history of the game at a glance. For me at least, it’s a lot easier to read. It also makes it easier, at least for me, to feel the tempo of a game and to have a strong sense of what stage the game is at. 

And for me, it feels less likely for a stones on the board game to stall out. Stale mates in Chess just make me feel depressed. 

Atlantean, one of Knizia’s more minor games, has stayed in my collection in part because there’s a maximum of eleven moves per player. (Variable opening set-up that’s under the player’s control also helps) When I want a quiet, thoughtful abstract that will take ten, fifteen minutes, it’s one I consider. 

And, while I consider it to be one of the weaker Pyramid games, I still occasionally play Branches and Twigs and Thorns because being a stones on the board game on a very small board turns it into a knife fight in a telephone booth very quickly. Mind you, the first few moves tend to determine the game but it’s so fast that the rest of the moves don’t take very long.

But I’m not just saying I like stones on the board because I can play some quick games. Go, the ur-example, is a longer game but you get to see the board develop and it becomes so wonderfully complex. The history of the play is there for you to see, even at my pathetically limited understanding of Go. It’s a living tapestry, which is a great turn of phrase even if it is too pretentious for words.

For me, I find myself using stones on the board as a category because I find that mechanic an act of meditation and creation as well as competition.

A literal second look at King of Tokyo

The first time I played King of Tokyo was a two-player game in January, 2013. The second time was a five-player game in June, 2019. Yeah, those were two very different experiences. And, to no one’s surprise, the five-player game was the much better experience.

Calling King of Tokyo Yahtzee with giant monsters is a fair description but it is more than Yahtzee with some giant monster pictures added. Very importantly, you get to beat each other up!

This was the first time I got to try the Power Up expansion, which I liked. I liked the original power cards (random but goofy fun) and the expansion gives you another, even more thematic way to get them.

Years ago, a friend said King of Tokyo was what Monsters Menace America should have been. When I pointed out they were not even remotely alike apart from being about giant monsters, he said he really meant that he’d rather play King of Tokyo. Which I can understand. I do like Monsters Menace America but King of a Tokyo is a lot more accessible and I can see it being a lot easier to get on the table.

And not only have I not played King of New York, I’m not sure if I want to. Part of the appeal of King of Tokyo is how simple it really is. I’m not sure if making it more complex is a selling point. If I want a more complex dice game, I have Alea Iacta Est or Kingsburg or To Court the King or others. Just like I don’t want to try any of the later versions of Tsuro. The simplicity is part of the selling point.

King of Tokyo remains a game that I don’t mind playing but wouldn’t particularly seek out and would only buy if our son ended up really liking it. It’s two main selling points for me are simplicity and going all in its goofy theme. 

Sometimes, a game is smaller than its five cards

2019 9 Card Game Print and Play Design Contest - Animal Fight

I am a big fan of the 9 Card Design contests. I’m a lazy PnP crafter so one sheet of cards is something that I can get behind. That’s something I can get done even when Iife is complicated. And if it turns out to be trash, I’m not too put out. And sometimes, you can find some real gems.

Animal Fight is not one of those gems. In fact, it’s more of an oddity than an activity or a game. Despite that fact, it is a complete thought and isn’t broken. It’s one or two moving parts definitely work. Yes, I’m damning with faint praise.

In a sentence, it’s two-player Rock-Paper-Scissors with no draws. One player gets the wolf and mouse cards, which are also vertical pictures. The other player gets the cat and elephant cards, which have horizontal images. 

Pick a card. Reveal it simultaneously. Elephant beats wolf. Wolf beats cat. Cat beats mouse. Mouse beats elephant. First person to win three rounds wins the game.

Before I say anything else, the game is five cards including the instruction card. Isn’t this a nine card contest? Bravo for minimalism but this feels like it goes against the spirit of the contest.

Okay, let’s be brutally honest. There’s just about nothing there. The only thing it adds to Rock-Paper-Scissors is guaranteed no draws but at the price of limiting it to two players. There aren’t any holes or issues with the rules but that’s because there’s no place for there to be any. You can use Rock-Paper-Scissors as a good starting point but it’s also the ending point here.

I wouldn’t play Animal Fight as a game. I love me a good micro-game and I think that a five-minute game can be a fun experience. But there has to be something interesting going on and that’s not the case here.

I can see using it as some kind of decision maker, literally just like Rock-Paper-Scissors, but that’s the extent of it. Still, it’s cute and only five cards so I couldn’t resist making it.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2141351/wip-animal-fight-2019-9-card-game-pp-contest-idea

A quiet convention experience

This last weekend was the first fundraiser for RinCon, Tucson’s own gaming convention. Since the fundraiser consists of two rooms, one for board games and one for RPGs, and twelve hours of non-stop gaming, every fundraiser counts as a micro convention in my book.

Some folks go to conventions for the spectacle and experience. Some folks go to find great deals. And some folks just want to game non-stop. One dear friend of ours loved GenCon for being the one time of the year he could get in full games of Advanced Civilization. The RinCon events are great for just sitting down and gaming :)

I have gotten into the habit of picking out one older game that I have a hankering to play and taking it to an event. At this point, my collection has a lot of older games since time keeps on going by :P This time, I took Winner’s Circle.

I got in two different plays with two different groups. The second group really got into the game with plenty of spite. And Winner’s Circle is a game that really improves with spite :D

(So far, I’ve tried this with For Sale, Money, TransAmerica/TransEuropa and now Winner’s Circle. Family style European games work well for this since they tend to be easy to teach. Now I’m wondering what to try next. Modern Art? Hoity Toity?)

I also got in a five-player game of King of Tokyo and a game of Bang with someone’s homebrew deck. I’d only played King with two players and five-players was a lot better. And it was fun to see someone else’s PnP work.

Oh, and I won a copy of the RPG World of Dew in a raffle. It’s story telling game about the Tokugawa Shogunate with a noir feel. Never heard of it but it sounds right up my alley.

All in all, I may not have learned any new games but it was a good event.

A parent’s thoughts on Legoland

We’ve finished up our summer vacation, which was going to Carlsbad, California, to enjoy Legoland California and the beach.

Legoland represents a middle ground in our theme park experiences. We’ve been to Disney World, which is basically an entire county with multiple parks where Mickey is able to control just about everything but the weather. And we’ve been to roller coaster parks like Cedar Point where it’s pretty much a day trip to go on rides. 

Legoland really feels like something in between. It has rides, including some small roller coasters. It also has an attached aquarium and water park. And, of course, it has legos, including characters, movies, displays and activities.

We had low expectations before we first went. Not going to lie. We were half expecting it to be like a fly-by-night carnival with Lego logos plastered on everything. However, it is actually has nice rather landscaping and actually puts you in a bubble of lego-theming. And there’s no denying that our five-year-old loves the place.

If you’re invested in any way to Lego characters, the character interactions are fun. Our son was thrilled to meet Lloyd Garmadon. And some of the rides, like the Ninjago ride and the Submarine ride were top notch. I’d be willing to ride them without a kid along :D

But here’s the thing. Lego is an all-age hobby. I’m sure eight-year-olds aren’t the target demographic for those great buildings of history kits, although I’m sure there are some who buy them. But Legoland is really aimed at ages six to eight.

Disney World or Disneyland, adults can go there without kids and have a fine time. I’m not even sure Epcot was designed with kids in mind. (I think it has more bars than the Wrigglyville neighborhood in Chicago) We haven’t been the Universal but I’m sure the same can be said for it. Legoland really is just for younger kids. Which was fine for us with our son but it’s not a place I’d recommend to anyone without a younger kid.

But it was really good for our family right now.

Alas, some abstracts won’t convert non-lovers

I have been spending perhaps an unhealthy amount of time dwelling on abstracts and abstracts I that folks who get hives from abstracts will still enjoy. Well, at least in my own arrogant opinion. Nine times out of ten, my reasoning probably breaks down to ‘I like it so you should too!’

However, there are some abstracts that I like that I’m absolutely convinced that only abstract lovers would enjoy. None of ‘Hive is the abstract for abstract haters’. Some games are ‘you don’t like abstracts? Yeah, you won’t like this’.

There doesn’t seem to be a formula to this. If simple and accessible were what it takes, Edward de Bono’s L-Game would be the gift for converting folks to abstracts. Each player gets one piece and there are two neutral pieces. Block your opponent from making a move and you get to win. But the game is so dry with the potential for the endless stalemates, I consider it more of an intellectual exercise in minimalism than a game.

Amazons, on the other hand, is a game that I think is cracking good. (I don’t actually know where that phrase comes from. I just stole the adverb from Bertie Wooster.) You move your queens on a ten by ten board, blocking off squares with every move. The board grows smaller and smaller and if you can’t move, the other guy wins. 

Amazons is a head cracker of a game and a really smart design. But it seems to be only the darling of abstract lovers. I can’t put my finger on exactly why I know but I can’t see myself trying to convert someone to abstract games with Amazons.

(Okay, maybe the fact that it is such a brain burner is a reason)

Then, there is the likes of games like Alfred’s Wyke, which is a weird abstract lover’s weird abstract. You either remove or add tiles in order to control a grid and there are five different types of moves. And you can’t use a move that’s been used in the last two turns.

Honestly, I have never found a game even remotely like it. It’s never been published outside of a magazine article and the website Super Duper Games has probably given it any exposure it’s had. It’s brilliant and almost unheard of and just plain weird. This is a game I’d struggle to get other abstract lovers to like.

A lot of the abstracts I’m interested in are games that I think folks who aren’t into abstracts can still enjoy. I’m an Everyman of abstracts for the most part. But apparently there are some exceptions.

My June PnP

June has come and gone. As I knew, June was not going to be much of a Print and Play month for me. In addition to summer starting, it was also the month that we took our vacation.

I just made one project last month but it was a ‘full-sized’ game, Red7. I actually made more sheets of components by making this one game than I made in January.

I actually printed out the sheets when they first became available. However, at that time, my PnP experience was so limited that I was scared I would ruin them and color printing doesn’t grow on trees. But I have been working on actually getting some of my ‘someday’ printing become ‘today’ games. I’ve also been working on trying to regularly make games that are more than nine or eighteen cards.

With Red7, I did both.