birthday cards

Every year I draw a series of birthday cards, usually ten different designs, for the following year, and then whenever a friend or relative's birthday approaches, I send him/her a simple card of my own design. I enjoy doing this, because it makes people happy. I have been doing this for about 10 years. For 2008, the theme I selected was boardgames and Lego. So here are 10 "Legolised" boardgame box covers. If you are reading this blog you probably know all of them, but if there are some that you don't know, or if you want to see how these drawings compare to the original, follow the link at the bottom.

My 2008 card designs

gaming in photos

23 Nov 2008. Chee Seng and Cherng Liang visited KL. Cherng Liang brought along his wife and daughter, so I taught them to play Chicken Cha Cha Cha while the other grown-up group played Galaxy Trucker. Rae, Cherng Liang's daughter, was absolutely thrilled with the game.

Han, Sui Jye, and Jing Yi, playing Taluva, a game I quite like but rarely have the chance to bring to the table. Michelle doesn't like it probably because of the chess-like nature. It is a perfect information game, and has almost no luck.

29 Nov 2008. I took this photo of my farm at the end of a game of Agricola because I wanted to show how Michelle denied my upgrading of my home from a clay hut to a stone house. I had the 5 stones and 1 reed ready. Michelle surprised me by taking both the renovation actions in the last round. In hindsight I should have done my renovation earlier and should not have waited until the last minute.

6 Dec 2008. Galaxy Trucker. This was my Class III (i.e. largest) ship. I made a mistake with my building. That tile on the top right corner was removed from my ship during the inspection before the flight, because I placed it illegally. The bottom side of the tile was a single connector, which could not connect to the double connector of that cabin right below it. This was a close game. $108 vis $104 of Michelle.

Michelle's ship. I only spotted some errors after I looked more closely at this photo. The purple and brown aliens were sleeping on their respective life support systems. That's not right. They should be sleeping in cabins next to their life support systems. So Michelle should not have had so much space for (human) crew members.

This was another game, played on the same day. This was my ship. I was hit by a large meteor coming from the front at position 10. It hit my shield generator, and unfortunately for me, because of my poor engineering (ship being held together by too few connectors), that whole chunk of my ship broke off. Oops.

After a few more hits....

Well, at least more than half of my ship was still intact. And I didn't lose all my cargo. That stack of lost components is high. Thankfully there is a cap of $11 for the penalty for lost components.

Having played some more games of Galaxy Trucker, I am now more optimistic about it. I have not yet gotten tired of it, like I worried that I might. I like the ship building aspect quite a bit. It's something constructive. It's a Carcassonne-like feeling, but here it feels even more positive and constructive (well, at least before you get to the journey part). When playing Carcassonne I focus on how to maximise scoring all through the game, and I don't stop to smell the roses. I don't really pause to enjoy the map building aspect. In Galaxy Trucker I get a strong feeling of building something.

My more recent games have all been 2-player games with Michelle. Although this game is supposed to be better with the full complement of 4 players, I find the 2-player games enjoyable too. We tend to build better spaceships and tend to survive our "business trips" better, and I don't mind that. So, looks like Galaxy Trucker will continue to get some plays.

8 Dec 2008. A 2-player game of Through the Ages against Michelle. This was my empire at game end. The key for my victory was the 3 Operas (theatres) and the 3 Computers (labs). I had Game Designer as my Age III leader, who gave me lots of culture for the labs. Scientists spending time writing computer games and spreading the computer gaming culture around the world, at the cost of sacrificing some real technological innovation.

The other part of my empire. This time I dug out my past leaders so that I could include them in this photo. Columbus was upside down because although I took him from the card row, I never had the chance to play him and use his power. I didn't draw a colony until it was too late. My military strength was built up only at the last minute, when I saw Michelle doing some suspisciously big "defense" spending. She almost wanted to declare war on me. She had been leading in military power throughout the game.

Michelle's empire. She had a production powerhouse at game end. 25 stones per turn (because of the Transcontinental Railroad wonder). She planted an Age III event that rewarded culture points based on production capacity, so she happily score 25 culture points for that card at game end. Her happiness should be at 8, not 6. She forgot to take into account her St. Peter's Basilica wonder which doubles happy faces. She could have spent less effort on happy faces.

Michelle didn't have an Age A leader. All her leaders were scientific leaders. Our games tend to be rather peaceful. Only one colony in the whole game, and Michelle conquered it. Michelle still tends to favour action points. She had the Pyramids and Code of Law quite early, giving her 6 civil actions vs my 4 since quite early in the game.

Winds of Plunder

Han brought Winds of Plunder on 23 Nov 2008. Sui Jye and Jing Yi also came to play. Sui Jye likes trains and pirates. I have already shown him Age of Steam, so now was his chance to play a pirate game too. I actually don't have any pirate game myself.

Winds of Plunder is a game that I find very hard to classify. It seems so Euro, and yet it is also very Ameritrash. There can be nasty confrontation. You can defeat an opponent in battle and grab his/her stuff. There are nasty cards that you can play on other players that they cannot defend against (i.e. "take that" cards). It is possible for multiple players to gang up on one leader, or multiple players taking advantage of the weakest player. All this sounds very Ameritrash. Yet there are also a lot of Euro mechanics. At the start of every round, you secretly note down which direction you want the wind to blow (which impacts the directions you can sail), and after everyone reveals the preferred direction, there is a round of blind bidding to decide the direction of the wind. Throughout the game, you collect victory points by doing various things. At the end of the game, you also score victory points for various achievements and improvements of your ship. The game even has Most Weapons, Largest Crew and Most Provisions cards, which are similar to the Longest Road and Largest Army cards in The Settlers of Catan, but they also provide some special ability during the game. All these features are very very Euro.

There is an area majority aspect, and there is also an action point system. The area majority aspect is how you race to be the first pirate to gain notoriety in all three ports in a region, by visiting these ports, and being the strongest pirate in town at that time. The action point system is how you have 3 actions points every turn, and you need to decide how to spend them. You can draw cards, play cards, sail in any direction regardless of wind direction of the round (which costs 3 APs), gain cubes (I am still not sure what exactly cubes represent in the game; you use them to bid for wind direction).

I have been going on and on about random aspects of the game. But how does it play? This is a game with a fixed number of rounds. Every round, after the wind direction is decided, you can sail to a new port, and you gain what is offered at that port, and then you have 3 action points to spend. Each port always gives some victory points, and one or two other things. You can increase your crew, or improve your weapons, or increase your provisions, or get a treasure map. Weapons are probably the most useful during the game, because it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Provisions may seem to be the least useful, but they score the most at game end. Treasure maps are fun. They show a port, and if you later visit that port, you discover the treasure, and score some points. Discovering treasures scores in a kind of triangular way. The first few treasures that you find don't provide many points, but the more you find, the more lucrative they become. So it's about investment. If you spend more effort on discovering treasures, this aspect of the game will become very lucrative to you.

You can decide to fight a fellow pirate at the same port. This doesn't cost any action point. Battle is deterministic. If you have better weapons, you win. Full stop. The winner can take weapons, or crew, or provisions, or even victory points from the loser.

An overview of the map. There are 4 regions, and 3 ports in each. The three ship-shaped tables on the sides are for tracking the weapons, crew and provisions levels of each pirate.

A closer look at the game board. Each port has a token showing what benefit you will gain by visiting it. Every time a pirate visits a port, this token is replaced with another one.

I like these card backs. The one on the right is the card back for the treasure map cards.

My cubes, my ship, and the wheel which I for secretly noting what directly I want the wind to blow. In the background, the 3 "most of" cards.

In our game, Han identified me as the biggest threat from the start of the game, and focused his attacks on me. Well, I am the most experienced gamer in the group afterall, so no surprise there. I would have done the same. Unfortunately for me, being at the losing end in the initial skirmishes meant I quickly became the weakest pirate. I had to try to avoid conflict as much as I could, and had to use pleading and begging to persuade others not to attack me. This is definitely an Ameritrash aspect of the game - the psychology and diplomacy. I gave up on trying to be powerful, and instead tried to focus on provisions. Unfortunately I lost out on that aspect too later, but thankfully I managed to pursue the treasure strategy well enough. I was the only one spending enough effort on that aspect to make the returns worthwhile.

There were some wild swings in the wind direction bidding. Quite often the winning bid was much much higher than the next highest bid. Sometimes when more than one player bid on the same wind direction, they lost the bid to another player wanting the wind to go in another direction, because they had hoped that the other players would spend more cubes, so they themselves committed fewer cubes. That was rather funny.

Scores were relatively close throughout the game. Han won the game in the end. He played most effectively. To my pleasant surprise, I scored the same as him, and only lost by tiebreaker. Being able to pursue the treasure strategy certainly helped. And probably my pleading and pity-mongering too, heh heh... not exacty what a pirate should be proud of.

300 the boardgame

Han was back in KL in mid November, and on 19 Nov he came and we played 300, a boardgame based on a movie of the same name, which was in turn based on a comic (well, they probably call it a graphic novel, which to me is just a fancier name) of the same name, by Frank Miller. I quite like Frank Miller and own some of his comics, including 300. I thought the comic was not bad, but I never watched the movie.

300 is about 300 Spartans standing up against the mighty Persian army. The Spartans picked a good battlefield, a narrow valley, where the numbers of the Persian army did not lend any advantage to them. The Spartans did very well, but unfortunately they were betrayed by a fellow Spartan, a deformed man who was not accepted into the Spartan army and held a grudge. The traitor led the Persians through a secret path to attack the Spartans from behind. All 300 Spartans were eventually killed, but they went down in glory, and inspired the Greek cities to stand up against the mighty Persian empire. Well that's what I remember about the story, and I may be wrong. I need to go re-read the comic.

300 the boardgame is a simple wargame about that same battle. The traitor in the story becomes a timer in the game. The Spartans have 6 turns to put up a good fight before they are being betrayed, and they need to achieve 100 glory points in order to win the game. The Persians win by preventing this from happening. The Spartans have a limited number of soldiers and characters. When they die, they die. The Persians can recycle their dead soldiers, to simulate that they do have an incredibly large army compared to the 300 Spartans.

There are a few ways for the Spartans to gain glory points, and also a few ways to lose them. The main ways of gaining points are killing Persians, and gaining ground. The Spartans can also lose points if the Persians manage to advance into the valley. There are special power cards that the players can draw every turn. They give special abilities at different junctions. These are one-time-use cards, so you need to decide what is the most effective time to use them. Some of them are tied to individual characters in the game and has some dependency on the positioning on the board, so you'd want to create the best situation possible to use your cards.

Fighting and movement are quite simple. Check your attacker strength total against a table, and roll dice. Units can get injured once by being flipped over, and if they take another injury they die. Interestingly injured Spartans fight even better, which I think is a nice touch. There is not much space for manouvering on the board, so movement is mostly about moving units forward to the frontline. Some sideway movement is allowed.

The board. Quite simple and straight-forward. It's functional.

Some of the Spartan characters. The "stars" are all already on or near the frontline.

The most powerful Persian units are all at the back initially. Most scary, of course, are the elephants.

So for the Spartans (I played them), the goal is to hit 100 glory points before the game ends. It's about going all out, and agressive play. Do not fear death. It's all about the glory. I think for the Persians the mentality will be more about damage control. How to minimize the glory point gains of the Spartans, and how to reverse the gains. So the game is quite asymmetrical.

In our game, I pretty much just went all out (which I am guessing is how the Spartans should play). The game seemed pretty "normal", as in I felt this was how the story should progress. The Spartans killed many Persians, but the Persians kept advancing. I managed to gain ground once, but later had to fall back because I couldn't get enough people to the front. A better Spartan player probably would have gained more ground, and thus also scored more points. The glory points advanced slowly towards 100, but there were some setbacks. One of my characters, who'd cause me to lose 10 points if he died, died. Ouch. Han got Emperor Xerxes (worth 20 points if killed) to the front line. I think he had some nice cards up his sleeve, which needed Xerxes' presence. Things worked up to a climatic battle. It was do or die. I still had Leonidas, the leader of the Spartan army, who is also the most powerful Spartan unit. Unfortunately for me, I was just short of killing Xerxes. Xerxes survived, and time was up for the Spartans. My score was 94 points. Killing Xerxes would have won me the game.

This was the final climatic battle. Leonidas and the two Spartan units were already injured.

It was nice to watch the game build up to this climax. Perhaps Han should not have risked Xerxes. We played quickly, so probably we both made some suboptimal moves here and there. But I think this is the most fun way to play this game - fast and furious. 300 is a simple and thematic wargame that can be played quickly. It might feel a little scripted, since it is trying to recreate a very specific battle.

the right way to buy and play games

I have been quite pleased with the way I have been buying and playing games this year. I find that most of my games bought this year have been getting many plays, i.e. very good value for money. I bought 22 games this year, not counting one which I self-made, one that I have pre-ordered but has not arrived (A Game of Thrones LCG - Living Card Game), and one that was a free game with another purchase. This good trend started with Race for the Galaxy (217 plays) and Through the Ages (16 plays), both of which I had not planned to buy, and only decided to do so after playing Han's copies. I have played 21 games of Agricola in one month. With the most recent purchase (mid Nov), I have played Dominion 12 times, Galaxy Trucker 7 times.

It is not just about the number of times a game is played. It is also about appreciating and exploring the strategies in the games. It is quality over quantity. I think it is better to play a good game 5 times and learn its nuances and learn to play it well, than to play 5 mediocre (or maybe even good) games once, and not be able to fully appreciate them. I think (or I would like to think) that I am controlling my game-buying urge better. I am always trying convince myself to play more of the games that I already own, and not to buy any new game unless I have an unstoppable urge to do so. Half-convincing reasons should not be sufficient anymore (e.g. I don't have something like this in my collection, or I should complete the set). That said, I did buy Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries. Now I have Ticket to Ride, TTR Europe, TTR Marklin, TTR 1910, TTR Switzerland, and TTR Nordic Countries. My reason is not half-convincing. My wife likes Ticket to Ride. That's a solid reason. No argument about that. But I don't plan to buy TTR the dice game.

Among the games published at Essen (big game fair in Oct 2008), there was only one game I had an urge to get, Space Alert. However, now that I have read some reviews, I may not get it afterall. Well, maybe I will decide after I get even more plays out of Galaxy Trucker, by the same designer. There were still some interesting games, e.g. Formula D, Cavum, Le Havre (high chance of buying), Chicago Express, Steel Driver, Ghost Stories, Powerboats, Snow Tails, Leader 1, Wasabi (also higher than average chance of buying eventually), but at this moment, no strong urge to buy now. I'll try to wait until mid next year before my next big order. That'll give me some more time to decide which games I want to buy. There will be more reviews for these now-still-new games too by then.

At this moment there is only one game that I have decided to buy - Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition. Well, there goes my no-half-convincing-reasons theory. I'm buying this partly because of nostalgia, and I know I'll love it, despite that I am not likely to get many plays out of it. I think none of my Axis & Allies games have more than 3 plays, except for the 1984 edition Axis & Allies. I didn't keep count of A&A Europe or A&A Pacific plays, but I'm quite sure they have no more than 3. A&A Revised (2004) - 2, A&A Battle of the Bulge - 2, A&A Guadalcanal (which I really liked) - 1.

So I hope for 2009 I will buy fewer games than 2008, and I hope other than a few exceptions I will play all new games at least 5 times.

other games in Hong Kong / non-gamers

My short trip to Hong Kong, 12-16 Nov 2008, was a good one. It was a business trip, and I extended my stay to Sunday, to meet up with some old friends. And we played lots of games. I have written about Dou Di Zhu, Metropolys, Galaxy Trucker, Dominion, Around the World in 80 Days. We also played Ca$h 'n Gun$, Citadels, Ticket to Ride: the Card Game, Hive and Sticheln. These aren't new-to-me games so I didn't write about them.

One thing that surprised me was my friends quite liked Sticheln. Sticheln is a trick-taking card game, with an interesting twist. At the start of each hand, you choose a pain colour (i.e. suit). During that hand, every card you win counts as one point, except cards in your pain colour count as negative points according to the value of the cards. The interesting twist is how it works in the opposite way from Bridge. The first colour played in a trick, instead of being the strongest colour, is the weakest. Any other colour played after that first card trumps it. It takes a while to get used to it, and to learn not to get "awarded" cards in your pain colour.

The game was confusing for my friends, especially Ben. However by the time we played our second game, they all started to pick up the tactics, and I didn't do well by then. Later after I returned to KL, I even played a few more games of Sticheln with Ah Chung and Ben over BrettSpielWelt.

15 Nov 2008. Ah Chung, Moh Yen and Ben, playing Citadels in my hotel room at Langham Hotel, Mongkok, a very nice hotel.

Ah Chung, Ben and Moh Yen are non-gamers. I find that it can be hard to please non-gamers (or maybe they are close friends so they don't hesitate to tell me what they didn't like about a game - 不会客气). The theme of a game can already be a turn-off, even before I tell them anything else about the game. Ben found the theme of Dominion to be an absolute turn-off, and told me so bluntly. Thankfully I still managed to convince them to try it be saying it was one of the hottest games now. Afterwards Ben surprised me by telling that Dominion turned out to be his favourite among the many games we played. I had expected him to say Sticheln, or even Fight the Landlord / 斗地主.

Non-gamers won't like games where you beat them easily, especially perfect-information games. I guess this probably applies to everyone. Not many people will enjoy playing a game where you know you are probably going to lose. Well, you probably should not think of it being playing a game, and should think of it as learning the game. I showed Ah Chung Ticket to Ride the Card Game and Hive, and he didn't like them because I could beat him too easily since I have played them before. The memory element of Ticket to Ride the Card Game is challenging to non-gamers playing it for the first time. And Hive, being a perfect-information abstract strategy game, of course fully favours the more experienced player. So, really, the two games that we played were more about me showing Ah Chung the games than us playing a game.

They enjoyed Ca$h 'n Gun$, and Ben even considered making a home-made copy to carry around, so that he can pull it out any time to play with friends. Ca$h 'n Gun$ is newbie friendly, because it's simple, and it's a lot about group psychology, bluffing, negotiation, intrigue, and not all that much about strategy (well the strategy is mostly around manipulating / persuading / threating / cheating / backstabbing people). I never was a big fan of Citadels, but I thought it would be suitable for non-gamers, and it was indeed. This also has some psychology / bluffing / double-guessing, and non-gamers / new players has a good chance of doing as well as experienced players.

I should try to keep up the momentum of playing boardgames online with Ah Chung and Ben. We haven't played Dominion at BSW yet. I think it will be much faster since we won't need to shuffle. Ah Chung is a big fan of Ticker to Ride (although he resists all versions other than the original USA version), and he has a paid subscription to play it online at the Days of Wonder website.

Dominion

Dominion is one of the hot new games in the hobby, often described as an innovative game where you do deck building as part of the game. Because of how much I enjoyed Race for the Galaxy, when I heard about an upcoming card game with some depth, I quickly became interested. Dominion is a very different game from Race for the Galaxy, but I guess they tend to get compared because both are card games with some depth.

I first played Dominion with Ben and Ah Chung, in Hong Kong. We almost didn't play it, because Ben was immediately turned off when he heard the theme. His comment was something like "not another one of those themes". I was only able to catch their attention when I remarked that this is one of the hottest new games. Later, Ben told me that among the many games played over that weekend in Hong Kong, this was his favourite. I was surprised. I should try to play this with him and Ah Chung on BSW.

In Dominion, everyone starts with a same personal deck of 7 copper ($1) cards and 3 estate (1VP) cards, shuffled. During the game, you buy cards and gradually grow and modify your personal deck of cards. There are three types of cards in the game. Treasure cards are your income. I think of them as businesses you own (which generate income) and not as money, because when you use them to buy something, you don't lose them. You discard them into your personal discard deck, and later you will reshuffle them back into your personal draw deck. Next, victory cards. These are victory points. They do nothing but clog up your deck, but at game end, only they matter. You need to buy these cards. Lastly, action cards, and this is where the fun comes in. There are 25 types of action cards, and 10 cards for each type. In any game, only 10 types are used. These action cards allow you to do all sorts of things, e.g. drawing more cards, having more buying power, forcing your opponents to discard cards, etc.

A turn is very simple. You will have a hand of 5 cards. By default, you are allowed to use one action card (play from your hand), and you are allowed to buy one card (use treasure cards from your hand to buy any card displayed face-up at the centre of the table). After you do both, discard all used and unused cards and newly bought cards to your personal discard deck, and draw 5 new cards in preparation for your next turn. Of course, some action cards will allow you to do more than one action, some will allow you to buy more than one card, and many will allow you to do many other interesting things.

The game ends when the province cards (6VP victory cards) run out, or any three stacks of cards run out. Then you count all victory cards in your draw deck and discard deck to determine the winner.

I find Dominion a very interesting game. So far I have only played a few games, mostly with the set-up (i.e. the combination of 10 types of action cards) recommended for new players. There is a lot more to explore, and I think I will get many more plays of this game. However despite the innovation, Dominion gives me one very familiar feeling which I have seen in many Euro games - earning money / building your engine in the earlier part of the game, and then pick the right moment to switch focus to earning victory points for the remainder of the game. St Petersburg gives such a feeling very strongly. This is a disappointment for me, because this feels very formulaic to me. I get that "just another Euro game" feeling. I seem to be doing the same thing that I have done in many other Euro games, except this time I do it via an innovative mechanism. The reason I feel this way is probably because I don't have a good grasp on strategy and pacing yet. That's why that familiar Euro feel is the first thing that stands out to me. I think I have been playing rather poorly and inefficiently, and I keep underestimating how quickly the game ends. I did try to execute some strategies, but none seemed to be very effective.

Teaching Han to play Dominion. His first game, my 3rd, but he beat me decisively. Man... I suck at this game. Hopefully not for too much longer.

Left row is the victory point cards. Middle row is the treasure cards or money cards. Right rows are the action cards (a.k.a. kingdom cards).

My hand of cards, and my discard deck, with the Village card on top. I like the Village card.

I still have high hopes for Dominion, and I believe I'll have much more fun once I start to grasp the strategies. By then there will be a lot to explore, with the many possible combinations of action cards (actually they are called kingdom cards). I think Dominion is meant to be a succint and tight game, not necessarily quick, but every decision that you make should be important - what action to do, and especially what card to buy. Every decision needs to be coherent with your strategy. I have been playing poorly in that I don't really know how to make my cards create synergy. But I had one chance to experience first hand how a well built deck can deliver a super high scoring turn. It was my own turn. I didn't really know what I was doing when I built my deck, so it was a fluke, a wonderful fluke. In that game against Ben and Ah Chung, I was very far behind and had not been able to buy many province (6VP) cards. Then suddenly on one turn when I had a number of Village cards (they give +1 card and +2 actions), I kept drawing more cards and getting more and more actions. I think I had some Smithy cards (+3 cards), and I had some Remodel cards (trash, i.e. permanently discard to a central trash pile, a card to gain another card costing up to $2 more). I used my Remodel cards to trash some gold cards ($3) of cost $6 to gain province cards (6VP) of cost $8. I think I gained 3 province cards on that one turn, i.e. 18VPs. I still lost the game, but I come from a distant 3rd to 2nd position. And this wonderful turn demonstrated how exciting Dominion can be.

So. I need to play more.

Around the World in 80 Days

I played Around the World in 80 Days when I was in Hong Kong on a business trip, on Fri 14 Nov 2008 after work, at the Jollythinkers boardgame cafe. This is a game that I have heard of since a few years ago, and have been interested to try, but never had a chance to do so. I did a concise reference sheet for it quite some time ago, in anticipation of finally trying it some day.

The game is, of course, about trying to go around the world in less that 80 days. Every round, a number of traveling cards are displayed at the edge of the board, and each player takes a turn by first selecting one of the cards, then doing the associated action where the card is taken from, and then deciding whether to move his/her pawn. To move from one location to the next, you need to play traveling cards matching the mode of transportation shown between the two locations.

There are quite a number of other details, e.g. special power cards, money and how you can use them (buy a card, or re-roll a die), traveling by balloon, traveling by elephant (in India), the detective who slows down players at the same location. It takes a while to explain all these to new players, but although many, the rules are simple. Only one thing can be a little confusing at first - the concept of time. There are two layers of time, time taken by your pawn to travel around the world, which I will call travel time, and the order in which player pawns get back to London, which I will call real time. Every time you travel from one location to the next, the travel cards used will determine how much travel time is spent, and you use your marker to indicate this on the track around the board. At the end of the game, the player who has spent the least travel time wins. However, if there is a tie, then who ever reaches London first (i.e. in real time) wins. Also, the game ends when all but one player reaches London. The last player automatically loses, even if he/she has been very efficient in managing travel time. So there is a race element in real time too, in addition to the competition in travel time.

A slightly blurred photo taken using my mobile phone.

Moh Yen, Ah Chung and Ben, who is struggling about what to do next.

A better shot of the game board, but from the north.

me, Moh Yen, Ah Chung and Ben.

Around the World in 80 Days is a game that I'd play but would not buy. I'd say I'm not the target audience. This is a lighter game, suitable for families (and children) and non-gamers. I'm happy to have tried it, and Ah Chung, Ben and Moh Yen all seemed to have enjoyed it. In fact, we played it 3 times. The game is thematic. There is some interesting decision making in the game, e.g. the card that you want may not be laid out next to the action that you want to take. There is also a fun gambling element in the bonus chips at each location, for the first person to reach the location, and for the last person to leave. There are two face down chips at each location (I hope I didn't play this wrong), and whenever they are awarded, it can be good or bad for the recipient. Some give money, or special power card, or travel card, some also delay you for one more day. And then of course the special power cards introduce a lucky-draw or surprise element. Most of them are good, but usually you need to use them quickly, because when one of the two bad cards are drawn, everyone must surrender these special power cards in their hands, and the deck of cards is reshuffled. So there is a push-your-luck element if you hold on to your good special power cards for too long.

In summary, not my type of game, but it's a good family game.

Galaxy Trucker

After writing about Metropolys, I should write about Galaxy Trucker, since I compared them. When faced with the decision of buying one or the other, I decided to go for Galaxy Trucker because it is unconventional. It has a real-time aspect, where players race to build the best spaceship. The other reason is Vlaada Chvatil, the game designer. Galaxy Trucker was released one year ago, and the novelty factor never really tempted me enough to buy it. Then this year after playing Through the Ages (also by Vlaada Chvatil) and loving it, Galaxy Trucker came back on to my wishlist.

In Galaxy Trucker, you and your opponents build your spaceships, competing in real-time, and then you embark on a trade voyage. There are two very distinct phases. When you build your spaceship, there are many components you can add - cabins, guns, shields, engines, alien life support systems, batteries, and very importantly, storage facilities for goods. Every type of component has its uses, e.g. to defeat enemies, to protect your from meteors, to power up other components, to carry more crew, etc. You try to cram as much good stuff onto your ship as possible, at the same time making sure you follow the rules for ship-building, e.g. components must connect legally using the right connection types, the ship must always be one joined piece, engines must point to the back, guns must not have anything in front.

At any time during ship-building, any player (usually the one who is nearer to completing his ship) can start the countdown timer, an hourglass. After the timer runs out for a number of times (depending on the round number), everyone must stop building and prepare for the voyage.

What happens during the voyage is determined by a random event deck. Some of these event cards can be examined during ship-building, but of course that costs you valuable time which could have been spent on ship-building. The events are a mix of good and bad things, and the flight order of the players plays an important role. Being in front means bigger rewards, but also bigger risks. If the fleet encounters an enemy, e.g. space pirates or slavers, it is the ship in front that gets attacked first. If the first ship does not defeat the enemy (or chooses not to), the enemy then attacks the next ship, and so on. So the first ship is in the most dangerous position. It is also the most profitable position. If a group of planets is encountered, the first ship has first choice to decide where to land to pick up goods. If you survive the trip, you sell your goods, you earn money for sequence of arrival, you lose money for ship components lost (e.g. broken off by a meteor or shot off by an enemy), and you earn a bonus for least exposed connectors. The richest player, after 3 spaceships of increasing size and 3 voyages of increasing difficulty, wins.

I have played 4 voyages, but not a full game yet. Two were tutorial rounds for learning and teaching the game. One was a proper Round 1 (small ship), and the last was a proper Round 2 (medium ship). The ship building reminds me a little of Carcassonne, in the way how the different sides must match. But of course Galaxy Trucker is much more complex. I find it advantageous to scan the table to look for tiles that other players have looked at and returned to the table face-up. It's much easier to find a component that I need, and that has the right connectors that I need. I also prefer to look at the event cards, which help me decide how I should build my ship. Maybe my fellow players and I are still new and still slow in ship-building. Looking at the event cards does not seem to take much time compared to the time needed to build the ship. I quite enjoy the ship-building part of the game.

The voyage part of the game feels more passive, because there are not many big decisions to make. It is mainly things happening to you, and you try to react, if you can. Usually the choice is obvious, or the decisions are very simple. Parts of the voyage phase can feel a little tedious, when ships are being attacked by enemies or meteors. You need to roll two dice to decide where you are being hit, for every attack. Some cards have up to 6 attacks.

This was the third game I played, in Hong Kong, at Ah Chung's home. This was Ben's Class II spaceship. So much space wasted. Needless to say, he came in dead last, and I took this photo just to make fun of him. Hey, he even had an illegal placement, the rightmost engine tile doesn't match up with the central engine tile.

This was my space ship. I built many cabins because I had seen the event cards and many need a big crew.

I think this was Moh Yen's spaceship. I'm not too sure.

This was probably Ah Chung's spaceship.

Galaxy Trucker is an innovative game, and an interesting game. Definitely it is quite different from other games that I have played. I enjoyed it. However I have a nagging feeling that the novelty factor may not last long. Well, I haven't even played one full game, so I may be completely wrong. Maybe one good way to play (instead of the standard Round 1, 2, 3), is to play Rounds 2, 3, 3A (3A uses a big spaceship template which is quite different from 3), or to play just Rounds 3, 3A. Not to say that Galaxy Trucker is not a good game. I so far feel the replayability is not very high. It seems to be a game that you can bring out once in a while, but not too frequently, like Ca$h 'n Gun$. It's fun, it's different, but not meant for very regular play, unlike Through the Ages which I can play quite frequently.

Comparing to Metropolys in my previous post, I find Metropolys to be more intellectually challenging. In Galaxy Trucker, the ship-building is an interesting exercise, but not really too taxing after you get used to it, maybe except for the time pressure if your group plays hurriedly. The voyage part is generally not really all that interesting, except when very bad things happen to your friends, or yourself. Metropolys is simple in terms of rules, but there is more thinking involved, and I find it to be more challenging. I have only had one opportunity to try Metropolys, so my feeling my change after more plays. And I do hope to play it again.

And I do need to play Galaxy Trucker again too. Afterall I have not even played a complete game and it may be too early to pass judgement.

From playing Galaxy Trucker, I became a little conservative about Space Alert, Vlaada Chvatil's latest game this year, which also has a time element, and this one is a cooperative game. This was the only game at the Essen game fair that really interested me, which I would have bought without playing. There were other games that interested me, but this was the only outstanding one. Now I think I will wait-and-see before deciding.

Metropolys

I have been wanting to try Metropolys for quite some time (probably because of watching Scott Nicholson's video review), and was considering whether to buy without trying. I was deciding between this and Galaxy Trucker, and eventually decided to buy Galaxy Trucker because it is more unusual. Thankfully when I visited Hong Kong I had the chance to try Metropolys at the Jollythinkers boardgame cafe. Ah Chung booked a table, and four of us - Ah Chung, Moh Yen, Ben, and I went there after work, at about 7pm.

The mechanism in Metropolys is very simple. Everyone has 13 buildings. Each round, a player will propose a district to construct one of his buildings. The next player can pass (and retire from the current round), or can propose to build in a neighbouring district by placing his own higher numbered building. This continues until all but one passes, and the last proposed building gets constructed. That's all to it. Now the scoring is a little overwhelming for beginners. Not that it is complex, just that there are many ways to score. There are tokens on the board which earn you 3pt (trendy districts), 1pt (districts with subways) or -1pt (historical districts). If you have the most subway stations, you get a bonus. If you are the most recent person to build in a historical district, you get a penalty. You have secret objectives (I'm referring to the advanced game, we didn't play the family game) - points for building in districts of a certain colour, and points for building in a certain configuration, e.g. 3 buildings in adjacent districts, 3 buildings around a pillar, 2 buildings on both ends of a bridge. At game end, the player(s) with the highest buildings in each region also gets a bonus. That is quite a bit to remember for your first game. Thankfully there is a reference card containing all this information.

The game is driven by the scoring mechanism. You need to evaluate what is valuable to you, and guess what is valuable to your opponents (they will have different secret objectives). There is a strong spatial element to the game. You need to look a few steps ahead from where you place your building proposal, thinking about which direction the bidding will go. There are some small tricks, e.g. winning a bid, and then when you become the next start player, you build your small buildings at dead ends where noone can outbid you because there are no adjacent empty districts. You can build in a desirable district surrounded by undesirable districts, to discourage others from outbidding you.

Moh Yen, Ah Chung & Ben at Jollythinkers boardgame cafe. This is very near the Prince Edward MTR station (in Hong Kong).

A close-up of the gameboard. Many people complain about the board art. It is a little glaring, but I think it's fine. This photo shows the early game, and the first round was in progress. The proposed buildings have the number showing. The blue tokens with an M are the subway stations (1pt). The purple tokens with a lady in a big hat are the trendy tokens (3pt). The pink tokens with a bronze artifact are the historical site tokens (-1pt).

We played the game rather slowly. I think Ah Chung, Moh Yen and Ben were a little overwhelmed by the many scoring mechanisms. They are not regular gamers. We almost played a rule wrong. The building numbers in your hand should be kept secret from other players. They can only see the height of your unbuilt buildings, but not the numbers. A helpful staff pointed this out to us. We played very (maybe overly) carefully, always trying to avoid building on historical sites. That's groupthink at work. The staff said that in his games, no one cares much about historical sites and everyone builds on them, which spreads out the penalty.

Ah Chung won this game, having constructed two sets of buildings that met his secret goal successfully.

I am undecided about the game, and would like to play again. I think our first game went rather long, which dampened my enthusiasm. I think this is a game that can be played quickly. I won't rush out to buy this yet. But I hope to try it again. In fact, compared to Galaxy Trucker, I think I may eventually like Metropolys more. I have a feeling that the novelty factor for Galaxy Trucker may eventually fade. Well, I shall see, after I play more of it.