Author Archives: nannyGOAT

Boardgames in the News: The Past, Present and Future of Z-man Games

The summer is now here which means conferences and take-overs. Last summer, Asmodée acquired Days of Wonder and then followed it with Fantasy Flight Games, Ystari Games, Asterion Press and Pearl Games. Last week, Canadian company F2Z Entertainment announced the purchase of the U.S. company Plaid Hat Games (who are responsible for Dead of Winter and Summoner Wars). Most people in the UK will have no idea who F2Z Entertainment are, however, they are the parent company of Pretzel Games, but perhaps more significantly, they also own Filosofia Éditions who in turn bought Z-Man Games four years ago.

– Image by BGG contributor mikehulsebus

Z-Man Games was created in 1999 by New Yorker, Zev Shlasinger, for the sole purpose of reviving Shadowfist, the multiplayer Collectable Card Game. From then on, the company produced a number of other American style games, including Grave Robbers from Outer Space and Ideology: The War of Ideas. The company had a much more significant impact on Euro-games, however, by introducing many German games to the United States. Z-man was one of the first companies to do this by actively engaging with the original European manufacturer and providing English translations. The first game to receive this treatment was Ursuppe (a.k.a. Primordial Soup) designed and produced by Doris & Frank. At the time, this was a very highly regarded game and the success of this reproduction quickly led to English editions of games like Santiago, Saboteur and No Thanks!.

– Image used with permission from BGG contributor samoan_jo

In 2007, Agricola was released in Germany to great acclaim, but as the cards are very text-heavy, it was essentially unplayable by non-native speakers. The problem with this game was the huge number of wooden pieces adding to the expense of producing a new edition. At the time, heavy Euro-games were perceived as a niche market and nobody was prepared to risk the capital outlay for such an expensive game. Z-Man were only a small company and were already engaged on their own projects including the production of what was to become another hit, Pandemic, and could not take the risk either. In the end, amid much controversy, Zev Shlasinger decided to gauge the interest of the community with one of the first boardgame pre-orders and the rest, as they say, is history. So the impact of Z-Man on the history of modern boardgames highly significant, and arguably, they were the forerunner of the current KickStarter Craze.

– Image by BGG contributor Simulacrum

In 2011, Z-Man Games was taken over by the French-Canadian distributor, Filosofia Éditions. With the take-over of Plaid Hat Games last week, the company now has the “cradle to grave” of the boardgame market: creation, publishing and distribution. So in that sense, the deal is clearly a sensible one. However, Z-Man Games used to be a by-word for exceptional customer service and following the take-over by Filosofia, this reputation was tarnished. Although it seems to be picking up again, this demonstrates one of the downsides of this streamlining of the market. More serious however, is the potential loss of innovation that comes from agglomeration, particularly on a large scale. That said, so far at least, all the “studios” that are part of the Asmodée group have kept their identity – the boardgamer in the pub would have no idea that Fantasy Flight Games and Days of Wonder are part of the same company. Only time will tell whether we have seen the pinnacle of the golden age of boardgames or whether there is even better still to come.

– Image from zmangames.com

Boardgames in the News: Are Games a Good Investment?

It might seem strange for a courier company to comment on the value of boardgames, however, David Jinks, the Head of Publications at ParcelHero (a UK courier comparison site), has been has been reported to have strong opinions on the subject. He explains how traditional games can be worth many thousands if the edition is right; they even have a page on their website discussing collectible games. So why are ParcelHero so interested? Well, it turns out that buying and selling vintage copies of Monopoly is big business, most of which is done on the internet using sites like eBay (who have several buyers’ guide pages on the subject). Thus, ParcelHero’s involvement is in shipping these items (though in truth it is probably mostly about publicity as there are a lot of other things that they can deliver too).

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Zoroastro

Now, there will always be a market for vintage copies of traditional family games, but what about the more modern classics? Sadly, that early copy of The Settlers of Catan is not worth a lot yet, though of course it might be when the game has been around as long as Monopoly of course. There are modern games that sell for a small fortune however. These tend to be games where there is some combination of high demand, small print-run, popular designer and unlikely reprint. There are a number of games that fall into this category and some are not all that old. Container was released in 2007 by Valley Games Inc., and is an unusual production and shipping game – those who have played it claim there is nothing similar. The recent law suit that ensnared the reprint of Up Front means a reprint is unlikely, so copies cannot be easily be obtained for less than £100.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor duartec

Another example, is Key Market, which was designed by David Brain and released at Essen in 2010, however, only nine hundred copies were made and it sold out very quickly. R&D Games are a small company and have moved on to other things (including one of our favourite games, Keyflower), so it looks unlikely that Key Market will be reprinted in the near future. This is not the only high value game from the Key Series: a set of the earlier titles Keywood, Keydom and Keytown recently went for £1,800!

– Image by boardGOATS

It’s not just games from small companies that become rare and demand high prices. Colosseum was a Days of Wonder game with a wide release, but following an alleged dispute between the designer and publisher, it seems unlikely it will be reprinted. Witch’s Brew is in a similar boat, though it is the implementation of its central mechanism in the Spiel des Jahres winning Broom Service which is likely to prevent a reprint. The irony is that Witch’s Brew and Broom Service are quite different even though though the publisher and designer have been saying otherwise, so demand is not likely to drop, quite the opposite.

– Image used with permission of BGG reviewer EndersGame

So clearly there is money to be made from boardgames, or at least, from some boardgames. However, for every game that increases in value there are many that end up nearly worthless. Worse, timing is everything; there is nothing like the announcement of a reprint to have a sudden impact on the market of a desired game. So, before a reprint is announced the price climbs steadily as the desired item becomes increasingly rare and people continue to pay the inflated prices as “they are only going to go up”.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

When a new release is announced, everyone has to take a gamble. Many potential buyers will wait for the new edition hoping that the price will be lower and the quality will have improved in line with modern expectations. So, demand suddenly drops and sellers are left with a tricky choice: reduce the price and hope someone who hasn’t heard the news will bite, or sit tight and wait. Notably, the recent Fantasy Flight Games announcement of a third edition of Fury of Dracula has led to a sudden flood of copies on the secondary market caused by people hoping to get a sale before the price drops. Similarly, the secondary market price for Mission: Red Planet plummeted when a second edition was announced. On the other hand, waiting can turn out to be a better option in the event that the new edition is deemed inferior to the original. This is not as uncommon as one might imagine, as artwork often changes and there are frequently also “improvements” to the rules as well and changes to some components.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor tumorous

Sometimes changes are for the better, but it is not uncommon for buyers to prefer the original. For example, for the second edition of one of our favourite games, Snowdonia, the wooden workers were upgraded to plastic figurines, however, our group find the first edition tokens more tactile. Sometimes, the publicity surrounding a release of a second edition has the additional effect of reviving a market that had become stagnant due to the lack of availability. In such cases, the reprint can actually increase the price of an already expensive edition when the new version is thought of as inferior. Mostly, however, a reprint will cause the price to fall as the difference between editions is something only a connoisseur will really appreciate.

– Image by boardGOATS

So, where does this leave us? There are a number of facts that are undoubtedly true. Firstly, with the exception of the most popular games, almost all modern boardgames are perpetually “between print runs”, with sufficient stock available to supply demand. For this reason, games can suddenly become unavailable and to some degree the buyer should take the opportunity when they see it, as it may not be there for long. That said, the best games generally remain in demand and are almost always re-released in some form or another. The recent announcement by Rio Grande demonstrates that even long out of print classics like the 1992 game Elfenroads, do sometimes eventually get a re-print, albeit in a very different form.

– Images from the manufacturers

The fact that boardgames are currently a niche market means that mature games are inevitably more likely to go out of print with a corresponding increase in demand. So, good games ideally with high production values will rarely depreciate by more than 50% if bought for a good price and sold in the right place. Thus, a gamer with a mature high quality collection who looks their games well, will rarely lose a lot of money if they keep them for long enough, especially if they can chose their time to sell. Of course, spotting good games at the right price is the challenge, but very occasionally, if they have the correct edition, a gamer might make a killing.

– Image by BGG contributor theotherside

Boardgames in the News: The Rise of the Boardgame Café?

It is just over two years since Thirsty Meeples opened in Oxford as one of the first boardgame cafés in the UK. From the outset it has been very popular, building on the example set in North America where Snakes and Lattes in Toronto is often given as an example of a successful enterprise. In fact, It has been so popular that there have been rumours of expansion or developing a second premises. The way Thirsty Meeples works is very simple: customers pay a cover charge which gives them access to the shop’s very extensive library of games for a period of time. Meanwhile, the “games sommelier’s” serve drinks, snacks and help people choose something to play and teach them to play it if necessary.

– Image from Oxford University Scientific Society

Over the last couple of years, there have been a number of other boardgame cafés opening using a similar model, including the Games Hub in Edinburgh and Draughts in Hackney, London. There are also moves afoot to open a café in Cardiff called Counters, and The Dice Cup in Nottingham which is scheduled to open in October, was the subject of a recent successful KickStarter which raised over £12,000. There are rumours of people trying to open venues in Brighton and Bristol and more recently, another three crowd-funding campaigns have been launched for cafés in Exeter, Portsmouth and Preston. How successful all these ventures will be, ultimately depends on the local clientele and the offerings as well as the overheads of course. It has to be a positive trend, however, and is one that is going beyond the dedicated venues, with many more pubs and cafés offering games for customers.

– Image from draughtslondon.com

Stolen Goats

Comet, Cosmos and Chico, three pygmy kid goats, were stolen from Willow Farm, Chilton, OX11 0QU. They were last seen on 22^nd July at 9pm – the barn was broken into during the night. Lots of damage was caused, but only the goats were taken. If you know their whereabouts please contact the Animal Finders on 07886 793681 (quoting AF13-4766) or the Police.

– Image from animalfinders.co.uk

Next Meeting – 28th July 2015

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 28^th July, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be Last Will, which is basically the boardgame equivalent of the film “Brewster’s Millions”; the idea is that in his last will, a rich gentleman stated that all of his millions would go to the nephew who could enjoy money the most. In order to find out who that would be, each player starts with a large amount of money and whoever spends it first is the rightful heir, and winner.

– Image by BGG contributor cnidius

And speaking of wills…

Jeff’s latest girlfriend, Jill, was a trainee lawyer specialising in wills and probate. One day, an elderly reclusive gentleman called the office and asked the receptionist about having a will prepared. In the usual way, the receptionist suggested they made an appointment at a convenient time for the gentleman to come into the office.

The elderly gent replied, “You must understand, I’ve lived alone all my life, I rarely see anyone, and I don’t like to go out. Would it be possible for the lawyer to come to my house?”

The receptionist checked with Jill who agreed and she went to the gentleman’s home for the meeting to discuss her estate and the will. Jill’s first question was, “Would you please tell me what you have in assets and how you’d like them to be distributed in the event of your passing?”

The elderly gentleman answered, “Besides the furniture and accessories you see here, I have £400,000 in savings.”

“OK,” said Jill, “So how would you like the £400,000 to be distributed?”

The gentleman replied, “Well, as I’ve told you, I’ve lived a reclusive life, people have hardly ever noticed me, so I’d like them to notice when I leave. I’d like to provide £350,000 for my funeral.”

Jill remarked, “Well, for £350,000 you will be able to have a funeral that will certainly be noticed and will leave a lasting impression on anyone who may not have taken much note of you!” She continued, “But tell me, what would you like to do with the remaining £50,000?”

The gentleman hesitated and eventually answered, “As you know, I’ve never married, I’ve lived alone almost my entire life, and in fact I’ve never slept with a woman. Before I die, I’d like you to use the £50,000 to arrange for a woman to sleep with me.” Jill was aghast, but there was something about the man that indicated he was in earnest.

“This is a very unusual request,” Jill said thinking quickly, “But I’ll see what I can do to arrange it and get back to you.”

That evening, Jill was at telling her boyfriend, Jeff, about the eccentric recluse and his weird request. After thinking about how much he could do with £50,000, Jeff persuaded Jill to agree to provide the service herself.

Jeff said, “For safety, I’ll drive you over tomorrow morning, and wait in the car until you’re finished.” The next morning, he duly drove Jill to the recluse’s house and waited while she went inside. He waited for over an hour, but Jill didn’t come out, so he tooted the car horn.

After a moment or two, the upstairs bedroom window opened, Jill stuck her head out and yelled, “Pick me up tomorrow – he’s going to let the state bury him!”

boardGOATS: 200 Posts

This is the 200^th post on our website!

– Image from giphy.com

We are only a little club with a small web presence, but here are a few of our statistics:

Since our first post on 6^th September 2012, we’ve had 6,746 views;
Our best month was January 2015 when we had 646 visits and 382 visitors;
Our best day was 5^th February 2015, the day after we shared an amusing flow-chart which has since become our most popular page;
We have 148 followers through Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, email and WordPress;
Google is our most frequent referrer with 687 transfers so far this year alone;
Most search terms that have led to our site are hidden by the searcher’s browser, though it is reassuring to find that variations on “boardGOATS” are the most common;
Some of the curious search strings that have led people to our site include,
“horse racing dice lagoon group” and “jeff takenoko“;
We get 17% of our views on a Tuesday which presumably reflects that we meet on a Tuesday evening, however, the intersection of that group and the 11% who view the site at around 10pm must be sorry to find out they’ve missed most of it!

Boardgames in the News: So, What Are Euro-Games?

A couple of months ago at our game night, one of the gamers commented that there were a lot of good games from Europe. This prompted a discussion about “traditional games”, “Euro-games”, “American games” and their relative merits. Most people know all about traditional games even if they don’t know what gamers mean when they use the term: traditional games are the games we all used to play as a child including Scrabble, Cluedo and love it or loath it, the dreaded Monopoly. Some people also include in this list games like Chess, Go and Backgammon as well as traditional card games like Whist, Hearts and Rummy.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor ManCorte

But the front page of the boardGOATS website says, “We generally prefer to play “Euro” style games,” so, what do gamers mean by “Euro-games” or “Euro style games”? Well, most of the traditional games we used to play as children were produced by publishers in the United States of America, companies like Milton Bradley (who made Scrabble) and Parker Brothers (who made Cluedo and Monopoly). Incidentally, both these companies are now part of Hasbro, but the aggregation of smaller companies to form a larger one is a topic that’s been covered elsewhere. While the “English” market was dominated by big players that concentrated on producing a few top sellers, in Germany there was no such dominance. The effect this had was that the market consisted of a large number of small manufacturers producing more varied products.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Susie_Cat

This coupled with the traditionally strong German toy industry encouraged the growth of a culture of families playing games together on a Sunday afternoon. It was in this environment that the annual German Game of the Year, or Spiel des Jahres Award, highlighted a range of games from Rummikub in 1980, Torres in 2000 and Camel Up last year. Over the years, the red pawn of the Spiel des Jahres logo, has become a mark of boardgaming quality, and for many German families, buying the game of the year is something they do every Christmas. Therefore, the qualities espoused by these awards heavily influence the concept of the “Euro-game”.

– Image by BGG contributor OldestManOnMySpace

But what are these qualities that make a game “European”? Well, that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, describes them as characterised by “simple rules, short to medium playing times, indirect player interaction and abstract physical components”. It goes on to say, “Such games emphasize strategy, downplay luck and conflict, lean towards economic rather than military themes, and usually keep all the players in the game until it ends.” On the whole this is not a bad summary, except that it is not very specific: how simple are “simple rules” and how long are “short to medium playing times”? Clearly these features are more about contrast, and although there are lots of different types of games including party games and war games, this comparison is usually between European style ames and American-style Games, aka “Ameri-Trash”.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Bilben04

Although common, use of the term Ameri-Trash (or Ameritrash) is controversial as some see it as unnecessarily negative, however, although other terms have been suggested none have proved as popular or as persistent. The term itself is over fifteen years old and was probably originally used disparagingly and applied to genuinely bad American games as a comparison with the much higher professional standards of games in Germany at the time. Since then, the scope has been expanded and many fans of those American games have adopted the term as a badge of honour.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor kilroy_locke

American-style games tend to be long, usually over two hours, and classically involve a lot of luck and often feature dice rolling. They are often considered to be a lot less “cerebral” or “puzzle-like” and, as a result, are sometimes described as “more fun”. The reference to “trash” may in part reflect the style of the pieces which tend to include a lot of plastic pieces to go with the dice. There is also often a lot of direct conflict in American-style games, where European games tend to be much more family friendly with indirect player interaction. Classic Ameri-Trash games include: Arkham Horror, Merchant of Venus, Cosmic Encounter and Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game. Sometimes there is also a book or film tie-in leading to games like Battlestar Galactica and Dune. Even just comparing the titles with those of classic Euro-games like Puerto Rico, El Grande, Tikal and Agricola, the difference can clearly be felt.

– Image by BGG contributor igorigorevich

The most essential part of American-style games is the theme, however, which is often integral to the game mechanisms. This encourages people fantasize they are part of the action when playing the game. The miniatures, the long playing times, the complex interwoven rule-set and the interaction (often culminating in players being eliminated) all combine to draw players into the drama of the game. In contrast, for Euro-games, the mechanisms are the focus, and the games can often be re-themed without much effort. The theme is therefore used more as an introduction to the more abstract European strategy games, making them more accessible, rather than being an essential part of the emotional investment.

– Image by BGG contributor cnidius

But things are not as simple as that. The nature of modern boardgaming encourages cross-fertilisation. There are more highly-themed, strategy-games available now and more long, strategic games with miniatures – these are sometimes referred to as “hybrid games”. For example, games produced by the Days of Wonder (based in the USA), like Ticket to Ride and Relic Runners have a lot of plastic pieces, though the games themselves are quite strategic and generally run for no more than an hour. Similarly, games like Escape: The Curse of the Temple and Space Alert use real-time and a sound-track to draw the players in, yet they are both short (Escape takes just ten minutes to play) and have no player elimination. Vlaada Chvátil’s Dungeon Lords series of games, also have a lot of theme, but are also playable in a manageable time-frame, have a lot of strategy and a reasonably streamlined set of rules.

– Image used with permission of BGG
contributor PaulGrogan

Confusingly however, “hybrid” has more recently also come to mean games that include some sort of mobile device application (and thus require a smart phone, tablet or similar). Now, lots of games have Apps that help them a long a little (e.g. One Night Ultimate Werewolf), but games like Alchemists and XCOM: The Board Game don’t really function properly without them. The question is, are these still boardgames? In truth, they are a sort of hybrid computer-boardgame, but the point is, however appropriate the name, it is all about the game and the other people playing: the bottom line is, if you enjoy playing it, it doesn’t matter what it is called.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor Mouseketeer

14th July 2015

It was a relatively quiet evening, which started off with food (yet again): Blue and Burgundy finished their dinners while everyone else began a game of Om Nom Nom. This fun little double-think game looks like it is going to be a popular filler following its two outings on one night last month. The game is quite simple with players simultaneously choosing animal cards to try to eat as much possible: for example, a cat will eat mice. Similarly a mouse can eat cheese, but only if it is not eaten by a cat first.

– Image by BGG contributor jancis

There are three food chains, each with three tiers. Dice are used to start off the bottom two tiers and cards are played to represent the top two tiers. The simultaneous card play coupled with the random nature of the initial dice roll is what introduces the double think: players have to decide whether to play a mouse card and go for the enticing large pile of cheese, or hope everyone else will play mouse cards and that their cat will get a good feed… Purple, Black and Grey introduced it to Magenta and Flint and clearly did the job well as they took first and second respectively.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor msaari

Meanwhile, since Blue and Burgundy had finished their supper before the rules explanation was over, they decided to see if they could finish a quick game of The Game before the others. We played this last time and since it was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres award, it seemed appropriate to try again. The Game is a simple game: on their turn, players have to play two cards from their hand onto one of four piles (the numbers increase for two piles and decrease for the other two). Since the idea is to play all the cards and (although we’ve only played it a couple of times) we’ve never got more than about half-way through the deck, finishing first was thought to be quite likely. However, ten minutes later, despite having been absolutely certain of catastrophic failure for most of the game, Burgundy played his last card leaving Blue with the just one, the unplayable sixty-four. And just as Om Nom Nom was finishing too.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

The “Feature Game” was to be Colt Express, which won the Spiel des Jahres award last week. Although there were seven of us and the game plays a maximum of six, everyone was keen to give it a go, so Black and Purple teamed up. When it came out of the box it was clear why Colt Express had won the award: the game is played on an amazing 3D train with bandits moving from one car to another, running along the roof and dodging bullets in an effort to steal the most loot. The game is played over five rounds, each of which is played in two parts. First there is the planning stage where everyone takes it in turns to play a card, usually face up onto a deck of cards. In the second phase, the deck is turned over and the cards are played one at a time by the person who played the card.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Although that sounds quite simple, there are quite a few fiddly bits which take a little bit of getting used to. The five rounds are played according to cards: these are drawn from a small deck at the start of the game and modify the number of action cards everyone plays and how they play them during the round. Starting with the start player, each person places their first action card on the communal deck, then they all take it in turns to place the next and so on. However, although the general case is that everyone plays one card face up in clockwise order, sometimes two cards are played instead of one, or it might be played face down and some are even played in reverse order. At the end of the round, sometimes there is also an event – all this adds to the interest increasing replayability, however, it also adds to the complexity on the first play through.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Players have ten action cards each, but they start each round with only six in hand, though they can draw an extra three instead of playing a card on the communal deck. The action cards allow players to move along the train, between the levels (roof and carriage), shoot, steal, punch another player or move the marshal. These actions are also a little tricky to get to grips with, especially since each player has a special ability and the card actions depend on where they are played. For example, if a player can only move one carriage when inside the train, but up to three if on the roof.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

This is fairly straight-forward, when compared with shooting though. Inside the train, one player can shoot a player of their choice in an adjacent carriage, however, on the roof any player within “line of sight” could be the targeted. In this context, “line of sight” means there is no other player standing in the way. Players cannot shoot through the roof unless they are playing the character Tuco and nobody can shoot Belle unless she is the only available target. When a player has been shot, they receive a bullet card from the shooter and this is added to their deck potentially reducing the number of useful cards they have in their hand. In addition, if the shooter is Django, the victim is also pushed back by the force of the shot.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Trying to plan during the first stage of the round, keep all these possibilities in mind and remembering all the cards played is impossible, especially when there are a lot of players. Since action cards are mostly played face up, however, it feels like you have some control over what is going on, until the second part of the round, that is, when even the best laid plans need rearranging! Once everyone has got their head round the rules, the unpredictability all adds up to a lot of fun though and our first game was no exception. Team Purple-Black (Belle) were robbed of their last gem by Grey (Cheyenne) leaving them with nothing, although they picked up the $1,000 for sharpshooter. Magenta (Tuco) finished with $500 in purses, but failed to add to it. Blue (Ghost) did better having looted $1,850 in purses, and finished just behind Burgundy who took $1,000 for the joint sharpshooter and the same in purses. Although Flint (Django) took the strong-box and managed to hang on to it until the end of the game, he was pipped to the post by Grey (Cheyenne) who made good use of his pick-pocket ability and ended the game with $3,100.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

We all enjoyed the game though with hindsight, we’d have set the table out slightly differently, putting the train at one end and the communal card pile in the middle of the table so that everyone could see what action cards were played (although it would have helped if we hadn’t had seven people round a six-player game of course). It is a very well presented game, however, it would have been nice if the icons on the cards had been a little more helpful, or alternatively, the bonus player mats could have acted as a player aid. With the number of small rules, inevitably, it turned out that we’d made a mistake. It was not a large one, but it might have impacted the lead as Grey had been using his power to pick-pocket gems as well as purses. We tried to work out what would have happened if he’d taken purses instead and Grey claimed he would still have won, but that just means we’ll have to play it again and make sure he doesn’t “cheat” next time!

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

With Grey and Magenta leaving, we decided to introduce Flint to Coloretto, an old game, but one that has stood the test of time and that we’ve played a lot recently. A simple set collecting game, on their turn, players can either pick up a chameleon card from the face down deck and add it to a truck, or take a truck (passing for the rest of the round). The innovative part of the game is the scoring which uses the triangular number sequence (one point for the first card, three points for two cards, six points for three cards etc.), with positive points for three sets and negative for the rest. It was a tight game which finished in a draw between Flint and Blue, however, on the recount, Flint finished with twenty three, one point clear of Purple and two ahead of Blue.

– Image by BGG contributor SergioMR

We finished with yet another go at The Game, which is proving strangely compelling. As a group, it is clear that we are beginning to work out some of the tricks we can use to extend the game and get closer to winning. For example, players are now watching out for cards that are ten apart so that they can use the backwards rule. In this way, we have been able to play three or even four card combinations that do minimal damage to a pile or even leave it better than where it started. Of course, this only works when you have the cards and, since you have to play two cards each turn, it’s not always possible to wait to play things optimally. This time we didn’t match our current best of one card, however, that was achieved with two players and we felt it is probably more difficult with four. We did better than our previous attempts with more players though, and finished with eleven unplayable cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor henk.rolleman

Learning Outcome: Chaos can be a lot of fun.

Next Meeting – 14th July 2015

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 14^th July, at the Horse and Jockey pub in Stanford-in-the-Vale. As usual, we will be playing shorter games from 7.30pm as people arrive, until 8pm when we will start something a little longer.

This week the “Feature Game” will be Colt Express, which has just won the coveted Spiel des Jahres award. This is a game that takes place in an amazing 3D train in which the bandits can move from one car to another, run along the roof, punch the other bandits, shoot them and rob the passengers.

– Image by BGG contributor lacxox

And speaking of train robbers…

Jeff was doing really well on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. Surprisingly, he’d somehow got to £125,000 with all his lifelines, when Chris Tarrant asked the question.

“For £250,000 which of the following was one of the Great train robbers.” Chris paused, “Take your time, was it Ronnie O’Sullivan, Ronnie Biggs, Ronnie Corbett or Ronnie Wood?”

Jeff replied quickly, “I’ll take the money Chris.”

Chris Tarrant looked surprised, “Are you sure, Jeff?” he asked, “You’ve still got all three 3 lifelines intact, why don’t you phone a friend first?”

Without hesitating, Jeff replied, “I’m sure Chris, I’ll take the money.”

Chris shrugged and went on, “OK audience, give Jeff a big round of applause.” As the clapping stopped Chris added, “But before you go Jeff, I’m sure you’d like to know the answer.”

Jeff replied, “Oh, I know the answer…”

“You know the answer?” interrupted Chris Tarrant somewhat aghast, “You’ve just turned down a quarter of a million quid, are you mad?”

Jeff responded as he began to leave, “Oh, I may be mad Chris, but I’m no grass…”

Boardgames in the News: Spiel des Jahres Awards

This week, Colt Express won the Spiel des Jahres Award. Although it may seem strange, this German award is highly sought after and is the most coveted award in the world-wide world of boardgames. The reason for this goes back nearly forty years when the “English” market was dominated by companies like Milton Bradley (who made Scrabble) and Parker Brothers (who made Cluedo and Monopoly). These concentrated on producing a few top sellers, however, in Germany there was no such dominance. So, the German market consisted of a large number of small manufacturers producing more varied products. This, coupled with the traditionally strong German toy industry, encouraged the growth of a culture of families playing games together on a Sunday afternoon.

– Image from spieldesjahres.de

It was in this environment that the annual German Game of the Year, or Spiel des Jahres Award, began in 1978, with the stated purpose of rewarding excellence in game design, and promoting top-quality games in the German market. The red pawn of the Spiel des Jahres logo, has since become a mark of quality, and for many German families, buying the game of the year is something they do every Christmas. Thus, the award has been such a success that it is said a nomination can increase sales from a few hundred to tens of thousands and the winning game can be expected to sell up to half a million copies or more.

– Image by BGG contributor Domostie

Over the last fifteen years, years, the Spiel des Jahres has generally gone from highlighting games like El Grande, Tikal and Torres (1996, 1999 & 2000), to rewarding lighter games like Dixit, Qwirkle and Camel Up (2010, 2011 & 2014). The problem was particularly brought to light in 2002 when Puerto Rico, arguably one of the best games ever made was not rewarded because it was perceived as too complex. The problem reared its ugly head again in 2008, but this time the jury awarded Agricola a special “Complex Game” award. These two games are widely considered to be the pinnacle of “Euro-Games”: between them they’ve held the top position on the BoardGameGeek website for the best part of ten years, yet neither were awarded the top prize. The problem was that these games were not mainstream enough for the German family game market: they were too complex for those families making their annual purchase. On the other hand, for frequent and dedicated boardgamers, these Spiel des Jahres games are too light. So, for this reason, the Kennerspiel des Jahres or “Connoisseurs’ Game of the Year” was introduced in 2011 and for more serious gamers, this has largely superseded the Spiel des Jahres. This year it was awarded to Broom Service, a reimplementation of Witch’s Brew which was itself nominated for the Spiel des Jahres in 2008.

– Image by BGG contributor Henco

The Kennerspiel des Jahres is not the only prestigious award available to strategy games however. In 1990, the German magazine “Die Pöppel-Revue”, introduced the Deutscher Spiele Preis or “German Game Prize”. This is announced in October every year at the Internationale Spieltage in Essen. In contrast to the Spiel des Jahres, the Deutscher Spiele Preis has gone from rewarding lighter games like Adel Verpflichtet (aka Hoity Toity, in 1990) and our group’s current favourite filler, 6 Nimmt! (winner in 1994) , to highlighting games like Russian Railroads and Terra Mystica (in the last two years).

– Image from wikimedia.org

This is the 200th post on our website!

This is the 200^th post on our website!