Tuesday, 3 December 2024
My Rainforest
Monday, 2 December 2024
Locco Hidden Market event
Sunday, 1 December 2024
Hippo Crates
The Game
This was a game I played at the MASAGA Conference 2024. MASAGA means Malaysia Simulation and Games. It is a community which uses games in learning. Learning can vary from corporate training (which I do) and tertiary education to primary schools and even teaching children with special needs.
In Hippo Crates, everyone starts the game drawing one hippo card. The card you get determines what kind of fruit you like. You only score points for this fruit type. During the course of the game you will collect cards. The only cards which score points for you will be this fruit type. There is one special hippo which is confused. He doesn’t score points for collecting cards. Instead he score points based on cards collected by everyone else which do not match their hippos’ preferences. He scores 1 point per card this way.
When the game starts, three cards are set up at the center of the table, starting three separate rows. Every round, players each pick one card from their hands and reveal them simultaneously. In order from lowest to highest card, you try to add your card to one of the three rows. If your card is smaller than the smallest card in a row, you may add it to the left of that row. If it is higher than the highest card, then you may add it to the right. If you can’t add your card to any row, that is good news. You claim all the cards in one of the rows and leave your own card there to start a new row.
The game ends when the draw deck runs out.
The Play
There are some similarities to 6 Nimmt / Category 5. One big difference here is you want to take cards, not avoid cards. Playing a lower number probably gives you more control, because if you are lowest, you go first and decide where to place your card. However if your card is very low, likely you can find a spot to play it, and you won't claim anything. The middling cards might be better, because chances are higher that you can't find a slot. You probably want to have a middling card that is just a bit smaller than the other middling cards, so that you will be first to get into the situation of being unable to play your card. After you claim a row, your card will start the new row, and likely the others after you will be able to place their cards in the new row you just created.
How you play your cards depends on the situation on the table. It also depends on what cards you have in hand. You can plan a little for the next round, e.g. playing a food type you want hoping you can win it next round. There seems to be not a lot of control, especially when there are many players. You only have a hand of three cards, so you don't have many options. With the uncertainty of what cards others might be playing, it seems difficult to deliberately plan to win the food type you want. But perhaps I had this feeling because we were all new to the game and we didn't know how to strategise our plays. The game might become more strategic and less random when the players start working out the tactics.
Friday, 29 November 2024
It's a Wonderful Kingdom
The Thoughts
The game has a somewhat interesting I-divide-you-choose mechanism. The threat of bad cards and the option to add cards face down is clever. The building construction, resource production and point scoring parts of the game are pedestrian. Nothing to write home about. As the players start building their kingdoms, there will be a tendency to collect buildings which combo well. So there will be more basis to guess what your opponent wants. You will also be able to better determine the value of a card to your opponent. Overall, I feel most of the game could have been made simpler. Do take this with a grain of salt, since I did so horribly at the game.