Tag Archives: Snowdonia

9th August 2022

Pink, Blue, Orange and Lemon were the first to arrive, very soon followed by Plum and Jade. While they were waiting for food, the group decided to play a couple of quick games. First up was Moneybags, a game we played for the first time a few months ago. This is a very quick social deduction game with a similar premise to Ca$h ‘n Guns: players are a gang of thieves distributing their loot. In Moneybags, the “Godfather” first distributes the loot and players then take it in turns to either steal from another player, pass, or close their money bag and recuse themselves from the rest of the game.

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If a player is robbed, the victim can challenge if they think the thief was too greedy. If the victim has less than the robber, they win their challenge and take all the money for themselves, otherwise the thief wins and they take all the loot. After two rounds, the players that have not been eliminated compare the height of their piles of cash, and the one with the tallest stack is the winner. Pink started sharing out the cash while Blue explained the game. Blue then started, robbing Pink to demonstrate how it is done. It wasn’t long before the first player, Plum was eliminated, and everyone really understood how things worked.

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When she was robbed, Lemon was unlucky to lose her challenge to Orange on a tie leaving only Blue, Pink and Orange left at the end of the round. It was then a matter of comparing the three stacks to find that Orange was once again involved in a tie, but this time he lost to Pink on the tie-breaker (the winner being the player earliest in the turn-order). Pink relinquished his right to being the Godfather though and gave it to Orange who filled the money bags for a second round. Unfortunately, Orange failed to put any coins at all in Plum’s bag and put most of it in Lemon’s and Pink’s. This made Lemon the first target and Pink the second.

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Ill-advised challenges left both Lemon and Blue eliminated in the first round and Orange by the end of the second. Another three way comparison quickly pushed Pink into third leaving a close finish between Plum and Jade with Jade just sneaking in front. Two games were enough, and Jade suggested the group move on to something new: MANTIS, a game from the same people as Exploding Kittens. This is a simple set collecting game where, on their turn, players can choose to “Steal” or “Score”. Players declare their plan (and their victim if they are stealing) before they turn over the top card of the deck. When Stealing, if the colour matches cards belonging to their victim, then they take the cards and add them, face up to their array.

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When Scoring, if the colour matches any of their own cards, they turn over the cards and these become points—the first player to ten points is the winner. While this sounds like pure chance, there is one thing that makes the game less random: the backs of the cards show three colours, one of which is the card colour while the others are red herrings (or herrings of another colour). So whilst the game isn’t challenging, it rocks along nice and quickly. Blue took points on her first turn to take an early lead, but everyone else soon caught up and overtook her.

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Food started to arrive, and everyone tried (and failed) to finish before eating; it took a couple more rounds before Pink scored his tenth point. It was very close for second with almost everyone else on six or seven, but Orange just nicked it with eight. While everyone tucked in to their food, the rest of the group arrived. There was some debate as to who would play the “Feature Game” which was to be Alubari: A Nice Cup of Tea, but in the end, Green and Ivory took themselves and the game to the other side of the room to set up a four player game where they were eventually joined by Black and Purple.

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Alubari is a re-implementation of the popular worker-placement game, Snowdonia. It had been a while since any of the group had played Snowdonia, so they needed a quick refresher of the rules and to learn the new aspects of Alubari. The underlying mechanisms are essentially the same, but it has a slightly smoother feel, and of course, the setting is Darjeeling (in the Indian state of West Bengal). In this version of the game, players harvest Tea Estates and assist in the building of the Darjeeling and Himalayan Railway, from Siliguri Town to the summit at Ghum. In addition, players use Chai (made from from harvested tea leaves) which increases the power of their actions. Like the original game, players take it in turns to place their two workers on the action spaces available on the board.

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Once the workers have been placed, players carry out the actions in action order, that is to say, anyone who has a worker in Action A goes first, with the spaces within each Action numbered and activated in order. The Actions are: take Resources from the Stockyard; dig Rubble from the Tea Plantations; convert resources (Iron Ore into Iron Bars, Rubble into Stone or Stone into Rubble); lay Track; build Stations or buy Equipment; take Contract Cards, and finally, harvest Tea leaves or make Chai. Chai is very powerful because players can use it to to get an additional worker for the duration of one round.

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Chai can also be used to enhance actions. For example, players can normally take three Resources from the Stockyard including one Chai; paying a Chai increases the number of Resources they can take to five with a maximum of two Chai. Some of this mirrors Coal in the original Snowdonia game, but initially, there was a little confusion amongst players over the differences between Tea and Chai. There is a distinction here between Tea and Chai, with Tea being the raw leaf product (represented in the art by a leaf) and Chai being the refined product (represented by a teapot). Tea Harvests are shown by a leaf with an arrow which mean players collect Tea leaves equal to the number of tea estates owned by player multiplied by the current value of the Tea Harvest Track.

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The Tea Harvest Track works the same way as the Excavation Work (aka Dig) Rate and the Track Work Rate: they depend on the Weather. The back of the contract cards show the weather; at the start of each round the current Weather disk is removed, the other Weather disks shuffled forwards and the empty space filled with a disk that matches the back of the top card in the Contract deck. Thus, players can see what the weather will do for the next few rounds and use that to plan when to take actions. In general, the Excavation and Track Work Rates are increased by sun, decreased by rain and Work stops altogether when it is foggy; in contrast, the Tea Harvest Rate increases with rain, decreases with fog and is unaffected by sun.

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At the start of each round, the Stockyard is refilled with Resources which are drawn blind from a bag. As well as Iron Ore and Stone, the bag also contains a small amount of Chai and five Event Cubes. When one of these is drawn, from the bag, the game plays itself according to a Rondel. This design feature is intended to prevent players from hoarding Resources and thus slowing the game—the fewer Resources there are in the bag, the more likely it is that a white Event Cube will be drawn out. The Events include Excavate, produce Tea, build Stations and lay Track. This last is particularly important because the game ends at the end of the round when the final Track space, on the approach to Darjeeling is completed—this could be by a player or an Event.

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Once the rules had been run through, the game got underway. Right from the outset Black pointed out that it was through Contracts that the big scores were really made. The Contract Cards come in two parts: a Special Action part and an end game bonus. The Action can be used in any round, but its use must be declared before any Actions are resolved. Whether the Action is used or not, players can claim the bonus at the end of the game, and it was these to which Black was referring. Ivory took note of Black’s advice and very early on went for a hefty contract which would give him forty points if he could get five rail tracks.

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Considering that there are only fifteen tracks in the game, with four players and the game itself sometimes building track through the Events, the Contract for five rail segments looked like a tall order. However, as nobody was really paying attention to Ivory’s plans, with the help of a Chai super-boost, it proved easier than it should have been. Aside from that, Ivory, along with Black and Purple began with a fairly typical Snowdonia game approach, collecting building supplies. Green on the other hand, decided to experiment with the new Tea/Chai mechanisms and started clearing the Tea Estates. Although Green did get the first Tea Estate, everyone else also got one soon after.

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Green was able to continue this approach though, and by the first Tea Harvest, he had more estates than any one else. Green was also the first to gain Equipment, going for a simple one, the Chai Boiler, from the Promo Pack, and gained two Chai with it. He was able to use those Chai to boost his later actions. By halfway through the game he had built up quite a pile of Rubble, and only then realised that he could use this to build Stations. This wasn’t the only game blunder made with Stations. It was only towards the end of the game that Black suddenly remembered the first town on the map, where players could use Tea leaves to pay to build the Station. The first space only cost three leaves, but gave a whopping twelve points and Purple make use of that as soon as it was pointed out.

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Green took advantage of the Tea/Chai conversion after a very good Harvest, pushing himself to the top of the Chai track. He was then able to get a third worker and boost many of his actions the following round. Through most of the game Ivory held the start player token, with Green and Black only taking it a couple of times with Ivory taking it back straight away. The game was building nicely when suddenly, almost out of nowhere, it was over. There were eight Tracks built when everyone except Purple chose to lay Tracks in the next round. Green went first. He needed to build two Tracks for his contract—he had the Steel but the Track Work Rate was one and he had run out of Chai so couldn’t increase it.

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Next was Ivory who did have Chai, which allowed him to build two extra Track sections and he had the Steel to do it enabling him to build three in one go. Black also had Chai, but only two steel. Seeing that he may not get another chance, he used the Chai, but still needed to lay one more track for his Contract. So the game had gone from eight Track sections to fourteen in a single turn. Green was primed to get his second Track section to complete his Contract, but unfortunately for him, the game had other ideas. With three white Event Cubes, the second event was Lay Track triggering the end of the game, but no Track left to be built. From there, it was just the usual calculations with players maximising points with the last workers and Chai.

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Adding up the points, it turned out to be an incredibly close game. Purple and Green were within a whisker of Black who was the runner-up with sixty-nine and a half points (yes, this game does indeed give half points!). It was Ivory who was the clear winner, however, with his five track Contract that shot his score to the dizzying heights of ninety-six. In the post game discussion, the group agreed that some of the Chai boosts seemed more powerful than others, and the track laying bonus in particular seemed overly powerful. There also did not seem to be as many Tea Harvests as players expected (only three in the whole game including one from a Contract Card). This was only one game though and it is highly likely that others will play out quite differently.

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Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, after a bit of discussion, Blue swapped seats with Lime and he and Pink introduced Orange and Lemon to one of our favourite games: Ticket to Ride. We play this quite a bit in lots of different guises, so the plan was to start by playing a short game, the Demo edition, and then play a full sized version. The game is very straight-forward and the basic play is the same across all editions: on their turn, players can take train cards, build track by paying train cards, or take tickets which give end-game points. While the basic mechanisms remain though, the map, the number of train pieces change and some editions add extra little rules.

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In the first, Demo game (played on the Europe map), Lemon managed to get lots of matching tickets which meant she gave everyone else a bit of a spanking. Not being a native English speaker, Lemon queried the vernacular at which point Pink tried to explain that it was a sporting term, but everyone else including those on the next table insisted that he should explain it properly with all the meanings. Lemon and Orange opted to spare his blushes by looking it up, only to blush themselves when they found it. Much hilarity ensued and was shared with the neighbouring table.

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After the introductory game, Pink and “the Citruses” moved onto a “full version”, but in an effort to avoid “special rules” the group played a house ruled version of Ticket to Ride: Germany. This version of the game has its heritage in the Märklin limited edition that was the third game in the series and was published about fifteen years ago. Märklin make model railways, a bit like Hornby, but with German trains. The Märklin version of Ticket to Ride had special art work with a different Märklin train depicted on each individual card in the deck. More importantly, however, it introduced a passenger mechanism which made the game considerably more complex than the original.

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With the Märklin edition sold out, about ten years ago, Days of Wonder (presumably reluctant to renew the license for the Märklin branding) re-released the game for the German and Austrian market as Zug um Zug: Deutschland. This was a simpler version that used the same map, but without the passengers, although the 1902 expansion was released a a couple of years later to reintroduce them with a new, simpler mechanism. A few years after that, about five years ago, the German game was released for the worldwide market including both the Deutschland base game and the 1902 expansion—the only difference was the omission of two tickets.

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It was this newest Germany version of the game that the group played. However, although the variant includes the passenger mechanism and there is no official variant in the rules “as written” to remove them, in order to keep things simple, the group omitted that part of the game, effectively playing Zug um Zug: Deutschland. The game had just begun, when three rounds in, Pine arrived. The others offered to include him, but he declined and, as a result, he didn’t play anything at all, all evening. He did manage to recount the infamous game when he and Pink gave Blue and Burgundy a spanking over the Heart of Africa map as they got stuck in the middle blocking each other.

Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 3 – The Heart of Africa

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The German version has two types of ticket: long tickets (brown backed) and short tickets (blue backed). At the start of the game, players choose four in any combination of the two types, but must first announce what combination of Tickets they are drawing. Pink went for an almost exclusively long (brown) ticket strategy which he achieved with varied success, while the others went for a mixed ticket approach. There was a little difficulty reading the tickets as the game uses a slightly gothic font which can be a little difficult to read, especially for those who’d forgotten their glasses.

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Both Lemon and Lime claimed the long train line from Berlin to Hamburg which give them eighteen points, the equivalent of a long ticket. And tickets were very important this time. Pink began completing routes from Kiel to Switzerland and France (via Bremen and Köln) before taking more tickets. To fulfill these, he extended his network to Hamburg in the north, but failed to get to Karlsruhe in the south which cost him eighteen points in failed tickets. The game can be played in a relatively friendly way, or aggressively with players trying to shut each other out. We play in the more self-focused, less confrontational way, so failed tickets are normally relatively unusual, as such, this game was remarkable in that it was a bit of a tale of missed tickets.

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In addition to Pink, Orange was particularly unfortunate this time, failing to complete any tickets as he was unintentionally badly blocked. The game was ended somewhat unexpectedly by Lime, partly because he picked up the long route (suddenly depleting his supply of trains), but mostly because people weren’t paying attention to the number of trains he had left. He was more fortunate in his ticket draws as well and that contributed to his hundred and fifty-four points and him giving everyone else a serious trouncing (another word for Orange and Lemon to look up). Lemon was the best of the rest finishing with ninety, over sixty points behind Lime.

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While everyone else was playing with trains, on the next table, Jade introduced Lilac and Blue to his new acquisition that he picked up from UK Games Expo back in June, Old London Bridge. This is a fairly typical Queen Games game, with lots of pieces, but not too challenging—just what everyone wanted on a warm night. The game is set in 1136 after the great wooden bridge across the Thames was been consumed by fire. Players are architects, each responsible for designing and building one section of the new bridge. On their turn, players add one of the available buildings to their bridge section. Each building has three attributes: Location, Colour and Number.

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There are six different types of building, each with a special “power”. Thus, Haberdashers allow players to take money, the Purple Chapel buildings allow players to move along the associated track etc.. The colour is important because if that colour matches other buildings already on their bridge, they get a boost—for example, if a player takes a blue Haberdasher building, and already has two other blue buildings, they get to do that action effectively three times, taking three times as much money. Finally, buildings must be built in descending Number order—to reset, players have to build a park, which has no additional “power”.

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There are six building spaces on a central Rondel, each associated with a different pile of buildings and each with a money bonus that changes as the Rondel rotates at the start of each round. Each Rondel space can only hold one player’s marker, thus each building type can only be built once per round. One space is always deactivated (which one also changes as the Rondel moves), but the seventh space, the centre of the of the Rondel costs money, but allows players to take any building, including one that is currently unavailable (either because it has already been taken or was deactivated at the start of the round).

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Each round, players bid with Character Cards to see who gets to choose a building first. Character Cards which have a numerical value, zero to four. Where there is a tie, it is broken by players’ respective positions on the Purple Chapel track. Players start with a hand of Character Cards, but can add to these by building a Hostelry building—the higher the power, the more powerful the cards they can take. At the end of the game, the players get bonus points depending on the value of the Characters they have left over. In addition to the Haberdasher, the Hostelry and the Parks there are also two types of buildings in the Bridge Gate: Purple Chapel Buildings and Red Gatehouse Buildings.

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Each of the Bridge Gate buildings have a track associated with them. During the game, passing milestones on these tracks give money and break ties (Chapel Track) or give special tokens that allow players to bend the rules (Gatehouse Track). Additionally, players get bonus points at the end of the game depending on their final position on these tracks. The final building type is the Guild House. These have no action associated with them, but are “Colour wild”, featuring all four colours, and as such, they boost every other building type. At the end of the game, players add their residual money to bonus points for their finishing position on the Bridge Gate tracks, for unused Characters, and for having the fullest bridge (if a player can’t obey the Number rules, they may have been unable to build a building).

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Jade had only just started explaining the rules, when Plum announced that she had a “new religion”—Kittens, and shared photos. From this point forward, every pause in the game became a “Kitty Paws” and was punctuated by more increasing levels of cuteness—definitely an improvement on the stuffed Pandas from last time. Despite the undeniable distractions, everyone was still able to focus on the game and proceedings weren’t slowed at all. Plum seemed to amass a vast amount of money in no time at all and after making a mess of her first turn, Blue got lots of orange buildings and lots of cards but was very slow to make any progress on the Purple Chapel track and lost every tie-breaker she was involved in as a result.

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Lilac was the first to run out of Character Cards and therefore ended up relying on her position on the Chapel track to ensure she didn’t get left with Hobson’s Choice every time. In this she was helped by Jade who also ran out of cards. Although Blue’s forest of Orange buildings meant she could get a lot each turn, her choice was often to do something she wanted but not get much of it, or take yet another orange building and to do something she didn’t really want and rely on probability to even things out in the end. Things didn’t really even out, and as a result, Blue ended up with a lot of Character Cards. Everyone else went for a much more balanced strategy focusing on one or two or maybe three Colours. And Plum’s pile of loot grew ever larger.

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Towards the end of the game, Jade put on a massive spurt along the Red Gatehouse track and collected some Character Cards, while Blue finally made a move along the Purple Chapel track. As a result, Jade who had led the Purple Chapel track for most of the game was pipped by Blue, and Blue who’d held a massive lead on the Red Gatehouse track was edged out by Jade. Plum finished with the most cash with thirty, but in the end was only slightly ahead of Lilac and Jade. Lilac who had just quietly got on with her game was the only player to fill all the spaces on her Bridge, despite running out of cards. In the ranking for players with the most buildings, there was a tie for second place.

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Initially, the tie was resolved as a friendly tie with both Plum and Jade getting three points for their second place and Blue taking one. On reading the rules later, it turned out that end-game ties are also broken by position on the Purple Chapel track, giving Jade three points and Plum one. In general, bonus points are actually much less significant than money. This is because money is absolute and turned directly into points, but the bonuses only reflect placings (not how successful someone is); the bonuses therefore have a maximum of five points in each case whereas players can finish with as much money as they can.

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In this case, however, it was very close for second place and the tie break for that bonus turned out to be critical: Plum beat Jade on the friendly ties, but positions were reversed with the tie breaker from the rules as written. Old London Bridge also includes alternate bonus conditions and had even one of these been in use, then the scores could have been quite different. There was no question about the winner though: throughout, Lilac had just quietly got on with her own game doing everything well. She was the only one to finish with all twelve buildings, finished with almost as much money as Plum, and had made good progress on both the Bridge Gate tracks. With a final score of thirty-eight points, she was four points clear of whoever took second. With time for just a few more “kitty pictures”, people started heading home.

– Image by Plum

Learning Outcome: Everyone Likes Train Games, and Kittens.

Boardgames in the News: The Museum of Board Games in Newent (Again)

As reported last year, the small Gloucestershire market town of Newent, houses The Museum of Board Games, owned and curated by Tony Boydell (designer of Snowdonia, Ivor the Engine, Guilds of London and Scandaroon amongst other games). The other day, the former BBC and ITV news reporter, Anna Brees, popped in to chat and do a little filming…

– Video by Anna Brees

Boardgames in the News: The Museum of Board Games in Newent

On 28th August, in the small Gloucestershire market town of Newent, The Museum of Board Games opened its doors for the first time. The owner-curator is Tony Boydell, highly regarded designer of Snowdonia, Ivor the Engine, Guilds of London and Scandaroon amongst other games. The exhibition is largely the boardgame ephemera he has been collecting over years of designing and playing games with friends and family.

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At first sight it doesn’t seem like much—it is very compact, but actually contains a really surprising amount, and the games table front and centre, draws in unsuspecting visitors. There are always a couple of games out on this table for people to fondle and play. This could be anything from the fantastic War of the Daleks to Tiddley-Golf or Froschkönig. As well as exhibits available to play, there are also little quizzes to encourage people to explore the displays and everything is labelled and tagged by the museum cat.

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For the most part The Museum of Board Games comprises games from the 20^th century, but there are also copies of The History of England (until George III) from 1803 and more recent games like Glory to Rome and Ticket to Ride: The Card Game. The most unusual and rare pieces are on display in cases, but one of the nicest things about the museum are the stacks of game boxes ready to be taken off the shelf and looked at in detail.

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When anyone shows an interest in something, it will readily will come out of its box for closer inspection. There is a remarkable number of games with a tie-in to TV shows, but also unusual items like a beautiful home-made copy of Monopoly themed round Richmond (London) and copies of L’Attaque! (which became better known when it was reimplemented as Stratego).

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In recent years, there have been exhibitions at the V&A Museum of Childhood and The British Museum, but this is a much better experience. Although the exhibits are (of course) the centre of the museum, what makes a visit really special is the curator, Tony Boydell himself, and his remarkable knowledge of the games on display and of games in general. Tony can talk for hours on the subject (and he will, if you let him), and as conversation meanders, he will reveal more treasures from the nooks and crannies of the museum.

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As an afternoon out, the Museum of Board Games is well worth a visit, though speculative visitors should be aware that it is currently only open on Fridays and Saturdays (10am-4pm). It is also exceptional value, but anyone who really wants to support the venture, should visit the museum’s Patreon page. For those who can’t visit in person, there are a couple of reports on the BBC as well as Tony’s Blog on Board Game Geek.

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Boardgames in the News: New Editions that aren’t an Improvement

Everyone has experienced a disappointing remake of a favourite film; while we always hope for an improvement, only occasionally do we get one. Board games have a similar problem, but as with films, things are often not clear cut. For example, the new version of Camel Up arguably has nicer art and a better pyramid dice shaker than the original. The Crazy Camel mini expansion and the partnership betting (from the original Supercup expansion) also add quite a bit to the game play, especially at higher player counts, but the money isn’t as easy to handle and the dice and camels themselves are plastic and don’t feel as nice.

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Similarly, the recent editions of Glen More (Glen More II: Chronicles) and Snowdonia (the Deluxe Master set) are beautiful and include lots of extra content. As previously discussed, this is at the expense of shelf-space though, and portability which means they are less likely to get played. In other cases, the revision is considered a definite step back. For example, the revised edition of Colosseum by TMG is widely believed to compare unfavourably with the original Days of Wonder edition.

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In a recent new edition of Monopoly, female players initially receive $1,900 with a salary of $240, while male players start with $1,500 receiving $200 when they pass “Go”. On the plus-side, as part of the publicity, three teenage entrepreneurs received a grant of $20,580 each to invest in their own inventions. Otherwise, Ms Monopoly is widely thought to be hugely patronising to half the population while claiming to celebrate empowering women, something that is apparent in the adverts.

– Video by Hasbro on youtube.com

These days, a lot of gaming is being done online. One new electronic game that has been seen as a retrograde step is the new Scrabble app, Scrabble Go. This is a new product that, thanks to changes in licensing, replaces the previous offering from Electronic Arts (EA). The problem is that the new version seems to have been designed to appeal to the Candy Crush generation with vivid colours, treasure-style rewards and in-app purchases. Unfortunately, Scrabble is a very traditional game and its players generally don’t appreciate that approach. To date, nearly eight thousand of these have registered their disgust through an online petition.

– Image by boardGOATS from play.google.com

The Carcassonne app has also received a similar licensing-inspired change and although the new Asmodee version is less offensive, many seem to prefer the older, Coding Monkeys version. So, before deciding to upgrade a game, keep in mind that a new version, often isn’t a better one.

Boardgames in the News: The Peril of Box Inflation

The increase in the number of games available has increased the pressure on the market considerably in the last couple of years, and as a result, buyers are getting more canny. Backers are more discriminating on KickStarter, and it is becoming harder to get market penetration with an original product. As a result, in the last year, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of reprints, deluxe editions and revisions of popular games.

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The explanation for this is relatively simple. When a game becomes scarce, the price rises. This creates its own frenzy of people calling for a reprint. In turn, this raises the profile of this now unavailable game, fanning the flames of desire in those that can’t get it, and increasing the price still further. This creates huge demand, and when the game is eventually made available, a lot of people perceive this as their only chance to obtain it. The combination of this Fear Of Missing Out (aka “FOMO“), and the fact that people have a better idea of what they are getting, means the product is more likely to be successful than something relying solely on “the cult of the new”, reducing the risk for all parties encouraging more cautious people to take the plunge.

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The downside is that some people will already have a copy, so the problem is how to encourage them to get involved too. One way is to provide a special edition, often including new material, or deluxe, better and, perhaps, larger components. These often also provide a better margin for the producers, making it a win for them, in all directions. The downside is that the box size has to be increased, partly to hold all the additional/larger content, but also to signal to everyone that the new edition is better than its predecessor.

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Games to get a deluxe reprint in the last year include, Luna, Snowdonia, Glen More, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects and Age of Steam, with Rococo, Lords of Vegas, K2, and CliniϽ coming in the next twelve months or so. These editions are truly beautiful and delightful to play with, but some of the boxes are enormous, especially when compared with their original editions. This makes them a problem to store, but more importantly, they are much less transportable and therefore less likely to be taken to games nights.

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If the likelihood of games being played is dependent on them travelling, “box inflation” reduces the chance of them being played. This is a great shame, because these deluxe editions are really lovely to play and have had a lot of time and money invested in them.

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12th May 2020 (Online)

Having spent the last few meetings playing online using Tabletop Simulator shared through Microsoft Teams, this time we decided to do something a little different. One of the group’s most popular games is 6 Nimmt!, which also plays lots of people. It has unavoidable hidden information, but is available through the online platform, Board Game Arena.

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On our first online game night, a small group had had a difficult time playing Port Royal on Yucata. Some of the group had also played rather challenging games of Snowdonia and San Juan, and, as a result, had moved to Board Game Arena for three more recent, epic games of Keyflower. The graphics and playing environment on Board Game Arena are more up to date than those for Yucata, but like most other platforms, the servers have been struggling at peak times with the load caused by the recent influx of new online gamers. The folks at Board Game Arena have done a lot of work on that in the last couple of weeks though, and the performance has improved significantly as a result. So much so, that we felt reasonably confident it would be stable enough to be the focus of games night.

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on twitter.com

So, this week, the “Feature Game” was to be 6 Nimmt! played on Board Game Arena. This is a game that everyone knows well, though there are a couple of minor tweaks to the rules. The idea is that everyone starts with a hand of cards, ten on Board Game Arena (we usually play with the hand size that is dependent on the number of players). Simultaneously, everyone chooses a card, and then, starting with the lowest numbered card, these are added to the four rows in the display. Each card is added to the row that ends with the card with the highest number that is lower than the card played.

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Placing the sixth card in the row causes the active player to take all the cards in the row, replacing them with their played card. The clever part is that the score is the not the face value of the cards, but the number of “bull’s heads” shown on the cards. The aim of the game is to finish with the lowest score. When the group usually play, we split the deck into two halves and play just two rounds. On Board Game Arena, however, everyone starts with sixty-six points and the game end is triggered when someone’s score falls to zero.

– Image by boardGOATS

From 7pm, players began logging onto Board Game Arena and joined the MS Teams meeting. Lime was one of the first and his chat with Blue and Pink was interrupted by a phone call from one of Blue’s relatives trying to source a set of drain rods. Blue and Pink were quite convinced they didn’t have any, but that didn’t stop Pink having to spend the next hour hunting for some without success (so Lime kindly offered to lend his if required). While Pink rummaged in the garage, everyone else joined the meeting and chatted. Mulberry unfortunately wasn’t able to join us, but she was replaced by Ivory on his first online meeting. It was great to “see” him again after so long, and good to hear that Mrs. Ivory, Little Ivory and Littler Ivory were all doing well and might be interested in OKIDO.

– Image by boardGOATS

Eventually, Pink finished ferreting and returned to the chair kept warm by his panda and everyone settled down to play. The Board Game Arena implementation worked nicely and everyone was able to chat in the background using MS Teams, but also through the game’s “chat” channel. There was the usual moaning about the quality of cards and comments about how badly things were going: it was almost like playing together in the pub, though not quite.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Green and Purple managed to avoid picking up any cards for the first round or two, but it wasn’t long before their natural collecting mania began. The disease spread and soon Pine, Ivory and Black were picking up lots of cards too. It wasn’t long before Lime triggered the end of the game, and Burgundy managed to avoid picking up anything in the final round to win, ten points clear of the rest of the field.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

There is a lot of luck in the game, especially with so many players, but everyone was happy to play again and it is very easy to engage in a re-match, or so we all thought. It wasn’t until the second game had started that we realised we’d “lost” Lime somewhere along the way. He seemed to be playing a game, but then it dawned on him, that he’d somehow got himself involved in somebody else’s game by mistake. He was very embarrassed and was keen to extricate himself, but Blue worked out where he’d gone and shared the link. So, to the complete mystification of the four French gamers involved, the Brits all joined their game as excitable spectators.

– Image by boardGOATS

Everyone boisterously cheered on our British Representative, to the blissful ignorance of the French and huge embarrassment of poor Lime. Meanwhile, Black worked out how to abandon the incomplete game and Blue started a new one which everyone joined while still following Lime’s progress against the French. Lime played really well and was in the lead for much of the game, but sadly, one of the French finished strongly and just beat him. Still, we all felt he’d done an excellent job keeping the British end up, and he finished a very creditable second (especially since he was somehow also playing the group’s game and working!).

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

After all that excitement, our game was something of an anticlimax. Nobody was really paying much attention for the first part as they were distracted by Lime’s stellar performance. But when everyone focussed on the game again, Pine, Blue, Ivory and Green were fighting it out to at the top while Pink was doing his best to end the game nice and quickly. There were the usual smutty comments (Green: “Ivory’s got a big one there…!”) and other banter (Pine: “I had the lead for all of two seconds…!”), but eventually, Pink put everyone out of their misery, somehow leaving Blue just ahead of Pine.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

Nobody was desperate for an early night, so everyone chose the rematch option again, and this time, everyone ended up in the same game. It started quite close, but Black soon found the cards irresistible and quickly amassed an unassailable pile of brightly coloured cards. At the other end, Pink went from “zero” to “hero”, going from last place to first place, with Pine and Lime tying for second place. Nobody seemed keen to play another round and the evening degenerated into chatter. Pink shared how to customise backgrounds on MS Teams including a selection he had downloaded from the BBC, with one from Blake’s 7 and another from Multi-coloured Swap Shop.

– Image from youtube.com

This led to a discussion as to which was better: Swap Shop or ITV‘s offering, TISWAS. From there, Pine shared some of his album collection with a quick blast of The Goodies’ Funky Gibbon and everyone started sharing weird things on YouTube including sheep playing on roundabouts; a fluffy sheep with no facial features, and the world’s biggest dogs. Pine offered Pink a copy of the soundtrack to The Sound of Music on orange vinyl, a generous offer that was politely declined.

– Image by boardGOATS

With Lime, Ivory and Green gone, and everyone else clearly not ready for bed yet, but running out of chat, someone suggested another quick game. Once Blue’s maths had been corrected several times (ruling out all the five-player games), the group started a game of For Sale. This is a simple auction game of two halves. First, there is the property sale, where players take it in turn to bid for a building or pass and take the least valuable available. Then, players choose which properties to sell when the “buyers” reveal their offers (cheques).

– Image by boardGOATS

The clever part of this game is that the property cards are numbered (one to thirty), so they have a relative value with those numbered close to thirty more valuable than those around one. Everyone starts with $14,000 and bids are in $1,000 increments, but anyone passing takes the lowest value property available, but takes a rebate equal to half the value of the bid (rounded down). This adds an interesting level of decision making towards the end of each bidding round. In the second phase, cheques are revealed with values between zero (void) and $15,000. The player with the highest value of cheques and any left over money once all properties have been bought and sold, is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Board Game Arena have a very nice implementation of For Sale, faithfully reproducing the original, quirky card art. There were a lot of controversially high bids, not least from Burgundy who paid $9,000 for the space station, the highest value property. It worked though, as Burgundy just pipped Pine to win by a mere $1,000, in what was a very tight game. It is a game where valuing property is key, both for buying and selling, and as it plays quickly, the group decided to give it a second try.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

This time, aside from Pink propping up the table again, everyone who had done well, did badly, and everyone who had done badly did well. So, Blue, Black and Pink were at the top this time, with Blue pushing Black into second place by $5,000. With that, Pine left the others to decide what long and drawn-out game they were going to play over the next fortnight, and everyone else eventually settled on Tokaido and set up the table to start the next day.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Learning Outcome: 6 Nimmt! est imprévisible dans toutes les langues.

14th April 2020 (Online)

Social contact is really important for mental health and board games are a great medium for that. Unfortunately, physical proximity isn’t an option at the moment, so we’ve moved our games nights online. Despite the limitations experienced last time, the overwhelming response from the group was that we should persist with online meetings. With this in mind, and the recent special offer for Tabletop Simulator on the Steam platform, we’d had a couple of trial runs to see if that would work for the group. Tabletop Simulator is a “sandbox” environment, which provides an electronic rendering of the game and tools to move things around.

– Image from steampowered.com

The strength of Tabletop Simulator, but also its weakness, is that people have to do everything themselves. Everything. This is good because it means the game can be played according to any rules people want, however, it also means there is a substantial overhead, which is just that bit too much for players not used to computer gaming. Additional hurdles included installing software (a problem on some work laptops) and the intricacies of actually getting it running which required an hour or so tutorial to get going. Unfortunately, these were just too large for us, especially for a group meeting only once a fortnight.

– Image by boardGOATS from Tabletop Simulator on Steam

Last time, we had played a simple physical game that we knew well, Las Vegas using cameras. Seeing the “table” had been difficult though, limited by the resolution of the cameras and lighting. So to improve things and get others involved, we decided to go with a compromise: some people would run the game on Tabletop Simulator (providing a better visual experience), but the game would then be “streamed” to the group through Microsoft Teams, using the technology everyone was already familiar with. This time, we were more ambitious: the “Feature Game“, Camel Up has more moving parts and lots of people hadn’t played it before. It still fits the two key requirements, however, lots of people can play (especially with the Supercup expansion), and it has minimal “hidden information”, so it would still work with a couple of minor tweaks.

– Image by boardGOATS

Camel Up is a simple enough family game, so teaching, even online, wasn’t too difficult. It is a race game, where people are betting on racing camels and the player with the most money at the end of the race is the winner. On their turn players have four options. Firstly, they can roll dice to move a camel. In the physical game, this is done with a special pyramid dice shaker that holds a die for each of the five camels and spits them out one at a time. We found using the online rendering of this very difficult, and wanted to involve the players more, so we used the real shaker to deliver dictate the number and players rolled their own dice at home to see how far they moved.

– Image by boardGOATS

Alternatively, players could place a tile on the track which would earn them money whenever anything landed on it and move those camels forwards or backwards one space (depending which way up the tile had been placed). The other two options involved betting: players could bet on the winner of the leg (i.e. after all the dice had been rolled once) or the eventual winner or loser of the overall race. A simple roll and move would not make betting very interesting, but in Camel Up, when a camel lands on the same space as another camel, it is placed on top of the other piece. Then, if the lower camel moves before the top one does, it gets a free ride.

– Image by boardGOATS

Betting on the winner of a leg was easy to implement—each player had a space on the simulator and betting tiles (and pyramid tiles showing players had rolled dice) were moved to that area. Betting on the eventual winner/loser was more difficult. In the physical game, players have five cards which they play onto the winner or loser pile. At the end of the game, these are evaluated with the first player to bet correctly getting the most money, continuing on a sliding scale, with those who bet incorrectly losing their stake. Obviously, this wasn’t going to work for us, so instead, one person made a note of who placed bets and people kept track of their own choices (as well as their money), and we just tallied up at the end.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue, Pink, and Mulberry started setting up from around 7pm. We used the expanded board from the expansion to make the race a little longer, but decided that any of the other modules would just make it too complicated this time. This was a very hard decision, because the game can become very random with lots of players and the expansions do a lot to mitigate that. We had already increased the complexity considerably compared with last time, and that would have been a step too far this time.

– Image by boardGOATS

As people joined the “meeting”, people chatted, mostly about nothing, largely because not a lot had happened for most people. Blue commented on the lovely large rainbow image in the window at Lime’s house (drawn by Little Lime), and Pine commented on how nice it was to be home now his caring duties were over. Green was the last to join the party, and he immediately asked when Pine was going to get back which led to much hilarity as the previous conversation was reprised. The procession of soft toys reappeared: Mulberry showed off her Pony, apparently called Macaroni (after Yankee Doodle), and Pine introduced us to his Gremlin, who apparently wants to join us at The Jockey when it re-opens and would like to be known as “Beige”.

– Image by Beige’s “Wrangler”

Having already set the game up for eight, Green and Lilac decided to play as a team, especially as they were still to eat their supper. Blue was about half way through the rules explanation, when, much to everyone’s delight, Burgundy arrived. He didn’t have a microphone, though he could hear everything people said. This created a weird juxtaposition of speaking and reading replies, which occasionally became typing (especially for Blue) when confusion set in. Playing would have been quite difficult as well as needing more set up, but it was lovely to have Burgundy back as we’d all missed him last time, and people couldn’t resist chatting on the text channel in the background. We will definitely sort out a microphone for him for next time though.

– Image by boardGOATS

From there on, it was disorganised chaos mediated by camels. Pine decided to share his packet of Tangy Cheese Doritos with everyone, and the disembodied crunching and rustling was quite something. He blamed it on Beige, but no-one was fooled. This was followed by someone (possibly Black) making a strange bonging noise that to Pink sounded like a bell from a traditional, mechanical signal box. He does have a bit of a thing about trains though. Meanwhile, on the chat, there were discussions about shopping and Pine’s burping camel impersonations. Clearly the Doritos were working their magic.

– From Peter Jordan on youtube.com

The game was something of a side-show to all this “excitement”. In the first round, aside from a couple of people placing oasis/mirage tiles, everyone just moved camels. Having seen how the race worked though, the betting really got going on the second round. The tech, though not perfect, worked well enough, thanks largely to Mulberry’s efficiency. And although the game wasn’t a “meaty”, “manly” game, being together doing something a little different was the most important thing.

– Image by boardGOATS from Tabletop Simulator on Steam

The betting on the end game really told the story of the race. Mulberry was the first to bet on a win, quickly followed by Pine, Black, Purple, Pink and Blue, with everyone gambling on the green or white camel making it over the line first. Pine was the first to have another shot, but still didn’t get it right. Betting on the loser, on the other hand, was started early by Lime and quickly followed by Pink, Black, Blue and Mulberry all of whom bet on the yellow camel to stay at the back of the pack. That camel seemed to have three legs, or maybe a pulling rider, or perhaps it had eaten too many of Green’s sausages. Whatever, it was definitely not a contender, and everyone agreed with Purple who commented that it should retire to a camel sanctuary.

– Image by boardGOATS from Tabletop Simulator on Steam

The front of the race was much tighter, and as the probability field gradually whittled down the likely order of finishers as it became clear that the game was coming to an end. The order of movement was all important and players jumped in with their final bets on who would win the race, but the final leg. Lime was the first to bet on the eventual winner, giving him eight Egyptian pounds, followed by Blue, and Pine with diminishing returns. Green realised that betting on the winner of the leg was more lucrative by this point than betting on the end of the race, and Pink followed suit, leaving Mulberry to finish the race.

– Image by boardGOATS from Tabletop Simulator on Steam

A quick run-down of the final finances showed that Pink was a single pound ahead of Green who who posted an initial, competitive total winnings of twenty Egyptian pounds. Lime, the first to successfully predict both the overall winner and loser finished some way ahead though, with takings of twenty-eight pounds. Pine excused his particularly poor showing by saying he thought camel racing was cruel. From there, the evening mostly descended into verbal and text chatter as people discovered and shared emojis (Pine was the first to find camels, but only in camel colour) and stickers, and then soft toys… again.

– Image by Mulberry

Mulberry suggested that when The Jockey re-opens we should have a “BYOB” party and “Bring Your Own Buddy”. Burgundy apparently misheard and there was more hilarity when the sad message appeared on the chat, “no bunny”. Green saw Mulberry’s Pikachu and said Pokemon Go was a problem in the current climate. That’s not the case for Mulberry apparently, who commented that she has a “Pokey-stop” outside her house. For those who were not familiar with the game Pokemon Go, that just sounded very smutty. Mulberry shared a “Let Me Google That For You” link, but it didn’t seem to help, and things only got worse when she tried to explained what she did with her “Pokey-balls”…

– Image from yucata.de

Time was getting on, and meeting on line is surprisingly tiring so eventually, people sadly departed, leaving Pink, Blue, Black and Purple to continue the seemingly eternal game of Snowdonia they had started two weeks earlier, on Yucata.de. Snowdonia is a worker placement game that we’ve played quite a bit as a group, where players are building the rack-railway up the famous mountain. The basic idea is that each player has two workers and they take it in turns to place these on one of the seven options: gather resources; remove rubble; convert resources; lay track; build part of a station; pick up a contract card, and move their surveyor.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

Each of these actions have a different number of available spaces, so for example, only three workers can lay track in any given round. During the game, the weather changes, increasing and decreasing the work-rate so that players can build that track faster, or slower, or if it is foggy, not at all. Contract cards give players points for successfully completing certain tasks, but can also be used to give an enhanced action instead. The game ends when all the track has been built to the summit, Yr Wyddfa.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

This game was started after the last games night, so it was only fitting that is should be finished on a games night too. It had started quite slowly – Yucata is quite different to Tabletop Simulator because it is much less flexible, but does ensure players follow the rules and can play turns for them when they have no decision to make. This can help speed things along, but can also be confusing at times when the game state changes more than expected between turns.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

Playing a strategy game over such a long time period proved difficult for those not used to it. This is mainly because players lost the thread of the “narrative”, and ended up playing tactically for the short term rather than following a long-term plan. Unsurprisingly, Black, who plays quite a lot of games asynchronously on Yucata, struggled least with this. He was also must familiar with the environment and got off to a flying start. Blue prioritised getting a train, but discovered that it didn’t do quite what she had in mind when she tried to use it a day or two later.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

Pink was the first to move his surveyor, but then completely forgot about it. He only realised it had been passed by everyone else’s about half-way up the mountain in the final round, by which time it was too late to do anything about it and the others were all at the summit. Blue had been horribly inefficient in places due to losing the thread of the game and additionally couldn’t quite build the track she needed to fulfil her most lucrative contract. According to Black, Purple was “playing online like she plays in real life”, but she was definitely doing something right as she put a spurt on at the end laying track.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

Black started fastest, took the lead and then stayed there, but contracts can be a big game changer in Snowdonia. This time though, Black completed two contracts adding a total of forty-six points to his twenty-one for getting his surveyor to the top of the mountain and forty-five points collected for building during the game. The total made him a run-away winner with a total of a hundred and twenty-one, miles ahead of Purple who sneaked into second place a couple of points in front of Blue. And with that it was time for the long walk to bed.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

Learning Outcome: A simulator can still be used even when most people don’t have access.

31st March 2020 (Online)

It is at times like this that we need social contact more than ever, and board games are a great medium for that, a fact recognised by both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the British government. With everyone confined to barracks for the foreseeable, we felt it was important to give online meetings a go. There are several online gaming alternatives, but they all either cost or are horribly slow thanks to the fact that everyone else is trying to do the same. For this reason, we decided to try to play a real game using the medium of Microsoft Teams with a camera pointed at the board and everyone else giving instructions.

– Image by boardGOATS

Our game of choice, and therefore our “Feature Game” for the day, was Las Vegas. This was because everyone knows it (minimising explanations), lots of people can play (this was intended to be a social event, so that meant lots of people could be involved); it has no hidden information (a necessity for this sort of thing). Blue and Pink began setting up at about 6pm, after the long walk home from work. They used two laptops: one was perched on some place mats and a pile of sturdy game boxes (specifically Tapestry, In the Hall of the Mountain King and Teotihuacan) with the reverse camera pointing at the table and the game, the second laptop was then used to see what everyone else could see.

– Image by boardGOATS

Black and Purple (in Abingdon), were the first guinea pigs and struggled to get the link to work. Eventually, with some discussion over the phone and the inevitable microphones and speakers on/off issues, they were successful. While Pink popped out to fetch fish and chips from Darren Pryde and his itinerant chip van (which were truly excellent), Mullberry (in Wantage) became the next guinea pig and signed in with little difficulty. After Blue sent out the link to everyone else at 7.30pm, there was a steady precession of gamers joining the party. There were a few things we learnt from this first experience:

As the sun set, the natural light from the window faded and the camera really struggled—lighting really is critical.
MS Teams worked OK with people joining through a link via a web browser, but it is important that the “game camera” has an active microphone. If it does not, Teams decides it is not active and it disappears for anyone viewing on a browser.
MS Teams thinks that feeds where the image changes a lot are the most active and therefore the most important focuses on these. This is a particular problem for those using a browser rather than the application; turning off cameras when inactive can help.
During setup, it helps to have something really obvious for people to focus on.
Maybe it’s the stress of the current climate, but there are an alarming number of soft toys in close proximity of people’s web cameras, most of which seemed to be pandas.

By about ten minutes to eight, most people had “arrived” and everyone was chatting about their new normal and sharing what they were drinking and stories of shopping—for a moment, it was almost like we were at The Jockey. A couple of minutes before the scheduled start, Green, the last to join, signed in. As Blue began dealing out the cards, Green’s opening comment was that it didn’t feel like a games night because we hadn’t spent half an hour chatting! That produced much hilarity, and more chit-chat, before we eventually started.

– Image by boardGOATS

Las Vegas is a very simple game, which is, of course, why we picked it. Players have a handful of dice and take it in turns to roll them and then place all the dice of one number on the casino of their choice. When nobody has any dice left, the player with the most dice in each cassino wins the jackpot. There are a couple of clever twists that make this a really great game though. Firstly, the prize fund for each casino is dealt out in money cards. Some cards are as high as $100,000, while others are only $10,000—the winner takes the largest denomination for that casino, the jackpot, leaving the player in second place to take the second largest, and so on.

– Image by boardGOATS

Secondly, and perhaps most cleverly, all ties, cancel each other out. This is absolutely key to the game: the vagaries of dice mean that a well-positioned player could roll one die and end up with nothing, and much hilarity follows. We also add the Slot Machine from the Boulevard expansion, which works in a slightly different way with dice of each number being added a maximum of once. We also use the “Biggun” from the expansion, so each player has on large die that counts as two.

– Image by boardGOATS

Mulberry began. One of the reasons we picked this game was that we thought most people might have dice of their own at home and could roll them themselves. Mulberry was the only one who didn’t, so being a true Millennial to the core, she opted for an electronic solution using an online dice roller. Otherwise, it was very satisfying to hear the rattle of dice as people took their turns. Although chatting was quite difficult over the network, that didn’t prevent a lot of smutty comments and requests for him to stop bragging when Green announced that he had “got a big one”. Even more entertaining was when the conversation moved onto Iceland’s entry for Eurovision and links were shared through the chat feature which resulted in Pink pressing play by mistake and drowning out everything else.

– From Eurovision Song Contest on youtube.com

It was not an ideal way to play any game and with our group Las Vegas is not quick at the best of times, but the combination of people reading out their dice roll so that Blue and Pink could display them, dodgy internet connections, people sounding like Miss Othmar (the teacher from the Peanuts cartoons), and trying to keep eight people on-message, definitely slowed things down. At the moment though, these things are unavoidable and we managed. It was nearly 9pm before the first round finished and people were happy enough with the result to play a second, if not our usual third.

– From Corgi Adventures on youtube.com

Black made hay with his singleton on Casino Three, when Mulberry’s and Lime’s piles of dice cancelled each other out. Green just pipped Blue to take $100,000 on the Slot Machine, leaving her with just $20,000 for the round, and poor Lime with nothing at all. Purple, Black, Pink, Green and Pine all had good totals in the range of $100,000-$150,000, so it was all to play for going into the second round.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time it was Casino Two that was a knife-fight in a phone box. Pink, Blue and Pine all had four dice in the mix with Green in second place (and therefore winning the jackpot) with two. The final roll of the game was Green’s “Biggun”, so when he rolled a two, nobody could believe his misfortune. Just before he placed it though, he realised he had another option—the oft-forgotten Slot Machine. At which point Pink realised the jackpot could have been his if he had done the same on his previous turn.

– Image by boardGOATS

Nobody really cared about the scores, but Mulberry, Lime and Blue all did better in the second round, though it was too little, too late. The winner was Green with total winnings of $280,000 with Purple in second with $230,000 and Pink and Black just behind. The real loser of the evening was Covid though: it wasn’t a great game, but for a couple of hours, we’d all had a bit of fun chucking dice about, forgetting reality for a while. And with that, Green, Lime, and Pine (signing in from Stoke of all places), left the meeting.

– Image by boardGOATS

Those remaining, decided to give yukata.de a go, and after a bit of discussion, decided to opt for Port Royal. It took a while to get going with Blue and Black trying to remember how to play and explain it to Mulberry. The game itself is simple enough though, and yukata.de, though old-school, keeps everyone honest.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

Port Royal is a fairly simple, push-your-luck game. On their turn the active player turns over cards until they either find one they want (and can afford) or go bust. There are four different types of card: Characters, Ships, Expedition and Taxes. Ships are free and give money, Characters give victory points and special powers, while Expeditions give opportunities to trade Characters for more points, and Taxes give people behind in the game a little windfall. Once the active player has taken their card, everyone else gets the chance to take/buy a card in turn order, paying the active player for the privilege.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pink started well, but Blue eventually got her act together and initially made inroads into his lead before taking it from him. When there was a succession of people going bust, her Jester gave Blue lots of cash enabling her to cement her position at the front. It wasn’t long before her advantage was eroded though, first by Black, adding a Jester to his Admirals, and then by Purple, claiming an expedition.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

It was all very tight towards the end, but Purple was the first to our chosen end of twelve points, with a score of thirteen points. Unfortunately, due to a rules misunderstanding, everyone was expecting one final round, but sadly, it was not to be. Purple was the last player in the round, and once everyone had taken cards from her leavings, Yukata decided that was it, Game Over. In truth, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference, and Purple deserved her victory though the other platings might have been different if there had been another round.

– Image by boardGOATS from yucata.de

It had been a slow and trying game, though not quite as bad as attempts to play synchronously at the end of last week when the website had repeatedly failed to record moves. Mulberry was looking very tired and it was getting very late, so she signed off, leaving Blue, Pink, Black and Purple to start what will probably be a long, asynchronous game of Snowdonia. That’s another story though, especially as it could take a fortnight or longer to play!

– Image from yucata.de

Learning Outcome: Playing remotely is not as good as playing round a table together, but it is definitely better than nothing at the moment.

Boardgames in the News: Withdrawal of Customer Service by Asmodee

One of the characteristics of modern boardgames is the number of pieces in the box: generally the more complex the game, the more pieces there are, and the more it costs. For many, part of the fun of acquiring a new game is checking, sorting and otherwise caressing these, often bespoke, pieces. It is very easy to lose or break a piece and an estimated 1-2% of new purchases arrive damaged or with something missing. One of the truly special things about the boardgame industry has been the general understanding of the sadness caused by a missing piece, and the support the manufacturers give when a game has become incomplete, even if it is not the manufacturers fault.

– Image by boardGOATS

For example, just over a year ago, one of the boardGOATS dropped a counter for No Thanks!. After an extended session of “Hunt the Game Piece”, we eventually found it nestling in a cushion of dust, just out of reach, exactly where it fell, having cleanly dropped through the gap between the pub floorboards. The game is inexpensive and readily available, but our copy is much played and much loved, and replacing it for the sake of one token seemed wasteful. Of course the missing token could be substituted with something else, a penny say, but that would have made us sad every time we played it. So, a quick email to AMIGO Spiele offering to purchase a couple of spares, and one week later a small handful of red counters arrived in the post—exceptional Customer Service from a superb company.

– Image by boardGOATS

The remarkable thing is that this is not the only example: similar service has been received from Zoch Verlag (Auf Teufel komm raus), NSKN Games (Snowdonia: Deluxe Master Set), Queen Games (Kingdom Builder), Ferti Games (PitchCar), Tactic (Nollkoll), Z-man (Le Havre), Rio Grande Games (Torres) & Splotter (The Great Zimbabwe), to name but a few, sometimes their fixing a problem of their making, sometimes just helping out. This superb service (sometimes with a fee, but often without charge) builds a good relationship with the customer and encourages more sales—so not so much “No Thanks”, as “Yes Please”!

– Image by boardGOATS

Last week, however, Asmodee USA closed its Customer Services Department to the public, and announced that all games with missing pieces should be returned to the vendor (as yet there is no comment on who should pay for returns of online purchases, or what happens with gifts that arrive with a piece missing). Worse, the FAQ adds that when buying a second-hand copy, they “encourage you to make sure that all components of a game are present and intact before purchasing” as they “cannot offer replacements for products that were not purchased directly from our USA retail partners or webstores”. Their justification for this is:

“With the number of quality titles in Asmodee USA’s growing library, maintaining an independent stock of elements of each game becomes more difficult. We believe offering the customer service through the store they have purchased the game from will be a better experience.”

It was initially thought that this would only affect USA customers, however, it seems that is not the case. Asmodee UK have passed the buck: according to their website, for replacement pieces for Asmodee, Fantasy Flight Games, Days of Wonder, Catan, Plaid Hat Games or Z-Man Games, “please visit http://parts.asmodeena.com/”, which in turn simply says:

“As of February 18, 2020, if a game is purchased in the US that has damaged or missing components, please return to where you originally bought the game for assistance.”

This change in policy may or may not make business sense in the short term, but for the gamer it is a very sad loss of what always felt like friendly support, and something that made boardgaming special.

– Image by boardGOATS

UK Games Expo 2019 – Not as Hot as Last Year, but that’s a Good Thing…

Last weekend was the thirteenth UK Games Expo (sometimes known as UKGE, or simply Expo), the foremost games event. Every year it grows bigger, and this was no exception. Historically, Expo is focused on gamers playing games rather than publishers selling new games, however, the exhibition aspect has been growing, and this year there were two halls full of vendors selling games and demoing wares. Last year, there was an issue with the air conditioning on the Friday which, combined with the thousands of “hot water bottles” walking about looking at games, made it unbelievably hot. This year, working facilities and a little more space made it much, much more pleasant, although Saturday was busier than ever!

– Image by boardGOATS

This year the hot games included Wingspan, copies of which were flying off the slightly wobbly shelves following it’s recent Kennerspiel des Jahres nomination. Foothills, a two player Snowdonia game by UK designers Ben Bateson and Tony Boydell (designer of the original Snowdonia, Ivor the Engine and Guilds of London) was another extremely popular game. Foothills is produced by Lookout Spiele, but there were sixty copies available from the designer’s Surprised Stare stand, which sold out in less than forty minutes (though there were a small number of copies to be had elsewhere for those that kept their eyes peeled).

– Image by boardGOATS

Surprised Stare were also demoing Foothills and another Snowdonia-based game, Alubari, which is due for release later in the year (hopefully). There was a new Ticket to Ride game available (London) as well as another instalment in the Catan series (Rise of the Inkas); the new expansion for Endeavor: Age of Sail was also available to see (coming to KickStarter later in June) and “old” favourites like Echidna Shuffle were there to be played and bought too. There were some very good deals to be had from some of the third party sellers as well, including some of the Days of Wonder games for just £15.

– Image by boardGOATS

One of the reasons for attending conventions is the opportunity to see and play games that are not available elsewhere. One example was Horticulture Master, a cute little Taiwanese game with beautiful artwork, which combined card collecting elements from Splendor with Tetris-like tile laying from games like Patchwork and Bärenpark. Another cute little game was Titans of Quantitas from Gingerbread Games, a clever two player strategy game based round the old fashioned digital rendering of the number eighty-eight. What really made this game special though was the fact that the stall was guarded by a fiberglass goat! Not everything was quite as wholesome though, as one Games Master was thrown out and banned for life for including content in a role-playing game that allegedly involved sexual violence and played on the shock factor. This is definitely the exception rather than the rule, however, and UK Games Expo is a great place for family and friends to spend a weekend.

– Image by boardGOATS