Good games create an environment where the players make interesting decisions. Interest is driven by the mechanics and can be supported by the theme and the look of the game. Outside of the game, one's enjoyment of the game is expanded by friendly company.
I only played four games yesterday, but one of them was a very long game. I had a great time. Today, I have a full slate of tournament games scheduled. I still might find time in the afternoon to swim in the pool.
Settlers of Catan: I did better in my second play of this game. I managed to win, so that I have a game to play (Catan quarterfinals) at the end of the week.
History of the World: HotW takes about five hours to play. Prezcon, being a weeklong convention is the ideal time to play it. I enjoy the company of the people, and I love the theme of the game (and thinking about the ancient civilizations in the game). Its mechanics are straightforward, but I still find the decisions interesting. There is a lot of downtime between a player's turns. That can promote social conversations, so the players make a big difference in the enjoyment of the game. Yesterday, I tied for first place and lost on the tiebreaker.
18Lilliput: This is a lightweight version of an 18XX game. In the game, you run a Lilliputian railroad company where you are managing the price of your railroad stock, investing in trains of your rail company, and investing in other companies. There are a lot of interesting decisions to make. The game, however, felt like real life work to me. I can tell it is a good game, but there is more math calculations than I prefer. I joked with my friends that I wanted to get a spreadsheet and macros to work through the game.
Azul: I wrapped up the night playing in the Azul semifinals. For being a short game with light mechanics, Azul has a lot to think about. I was out of my depth in the semifinals playing against two particularly good players with lots of experience in the game. I finished last, but I would like to play more games of Azul. I will probably buy a copy for myself.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Prezcon 2019 Day 2
I had another boardgame packed day yesterday. I played six games, with one of them being new. My play level in the different games ranged from good to poor.
In one of the games where I played poorly, one of my opponents seemed to be suspicious of my intentions. He made a comment at the end that implied I might have been colluding with the person who won the game. This player was the type of person who kibbitzes and expresses a bit of frustration when opponents play differently from how he thinks they should play. Kibbitzing is pretty common in games, but the frustration aspect is unusual at Prezcon where I have found people to be cool and laid back. The game in which this occurred is one that I am not an expert, but I do occasionally win. I also don't play the game outside Prezcon so my level of play varies greatly. It is interesting that this player appears to project his own expertise (real or otherwise) on all of his opponents and appears to become suspicious if people play differently from what he perceives is the best way. A lot of this is speculation on my part because I don't know what is going on in another person's mind.
Weird things can happen in games. A friend of mine told me a story of another opponent who refuses to play with my friend this opponent perceived an unusual play by my friend as something against the rules (the play was legal, and my friend is very good at this game). This opponent has actually gone so far as to withdraw from a tournament rather than play against my friend. People can take some of these games too seriously.
Here are the games I played yesterday.
San Juan: a quick, card driven version of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is one of my favorites (it is like consulting), so this game was fun.
Texas Glory: I lost this game as the Texians (Texans). This is an asymmetrical game about the Texas Revolution. I think I played pretty well, and I was playing against one of the top players in the tournament.
Settlers of Catan: I didn't do great in this game, but I have another chance to play today.
Castles of Burgundy: I didn't do great in this game either. I made a very poor decision at the beginning and I started losing concentration later in the game. I have another chance to play today.
Azul: I won my first game of Azul. It was quite the turnaround from my previous Azul game on Monday. I get to play in the semifinals tonight. We will see how it goes.
Mysterium: I finally got a chance to play this cooperative, "Clue by pictures" game. I am not a fan co-op games, but the company of friends made it fun. This was a great way to close the night. We "won" the game, despite many jokes about us new players on how individuals can win (the answer is, "we all win together, or we all lose together. There are no individual winners!"). The premise of the game is that a ghost of a murder victim is trying to communicate with psychics (the players) about the identity, location, and weapon of the murderer. The catch is that the ghost can only communicate in pictures. The play involves trying to link pictures provided by the "ghost" with pictures representing the murder suspects, possible locations, and possible murder weapons. Oftentimes, the pictures the ghost is choosing from are difficult to link to what is on the board. It makes the process to identify the murderer difficult (being a psychic is hard!). Mysterium is good game where people can play, and not take it too seriously.
Lots more games today, including History of the World!
In one of the games where I played poorly, one of my opponents seemed to be suspicious of my intentions. He made a comment at the end that implied I might have been colluding with the person who won the game. This player was the type of person who kibbitzes and expresses a bit of frustration when opponents play differently from how he thinks they should play. Kibbitzing is pretty common in games, but the frustration aspect is unusual at Prezcon where I have found people to be cool and laid back. The game in which this occurred is one that I am not an expert, but I do occasionally win. I also don't play the game outside Prezcon so my level of play varies greatly. It is interesting that this player appears to project his own expertise (real or otherwise) on all of his opponents and appears to become suspicious if people play differently from what he perceives is the best way. A lot of this is speculation on my part because I don't know what is going on in another person's mind.
Weird things can happen in games. A friend of mine told me a story of another opponent who refuses to play with my friend this opponent perceived an unusual play by my friend as something against the rules (the play was legal, and my friend is very good at this game). This opponent has actually gone so far as to withdraw from a tournament rather than play against my friend. People can take some of these games too seriously.
Here are the games I played yesterday.
San Juan: a quick, card driven version of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is one of my favorites (it is like consulting), so this game was fun.
Texas Glory: I lost this game as the Texians (Texans). This is an asymmetrical game about the Texas Revolution. I think I played pretty well, and I was playing against one of the top players in the tournament.
Settlers of Catan: I didn't do great in this game, but I have another chance to play today.
Castles of Burgundy: I didn't do great in this game either. I made a very poor decision at the beginning and I started losing concentration later in the game. I have another chance to play today.
Azul: I won my first game of Azul. It was quite the turnaround from my previous Azul game on Monday. I get to play in the semifinals tonight. We will see how it goes.
Mysterium: I finally got a chance to play this cooperative, "Clue by pictures" game. I am not a fan co-op games, but the company of friends made it fun. This was a great way to close the night. We "won" the game, despite many jokes about us new players on how individuals can win (the answer is, "we all win together, or we all lose together. There are no individual winners!"). The premise of the game is that a ghost of a murder victim is trying to communicate with psychics (the players) about the identity, location, and weapon of the murderer. The catch is that the ghost can only communicate in pictures. The play involves trying to link pictures provided by the "ghost" with pictures representing the murder suspects, possible locations, and possible murder weapons. Oftentimes, the pictures the ghost is choosing from are difficult to link to what is on the board. It makes the process to identify the murderer difficult (being a psychic is hard!). Mysterium is good game where people can play, and not take it too seriously.
Lots more games today, including History of the World!
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Prezcon 2019 Day 1
As in years past, I find myself sitting by the pool this morning at Prezcon thinking about my experience so far. Yesterday, my first day at Prezcon 2019, was a lot of fun. I have seen several of my friends already and played boardgames with many of them. The drive to Prezcon was uneventful, even with strong winds that pushed my little FIAT around a bit. I played a surprising number of games for a Prezcon Monday: six, with two of them being new to me.
Driving down to Prezcon yesterday, I reflected upong what drives my enjoyment of the convention. It has taken me years to realize this, but a large part of the enjoyment is spending time with like minded people. This is also true for rowing. In both boardgaming and rowing, the activity brings me in contact with who enjoy breaking down an activity into its components and figuring them out. It also brings me into contact with people who, to varying degrees are competitive. For boardgaming specifically, this involves learning how a game works or learning deeper depths of the mechanics of a more familiar game. While I enjoy trying to win, the games I play, I also enjoy the interactions with players and the conversations after and between games. Prezcon provides the opportunity to have dinner with fellow gamers, chat with them, and share experiences about new games and new experiences with familiar games.
I played six games yesterdays: Scythe, Sagrada, two games of 7 Wonders, Azul, and Wingspan. There is also a tongue and cheek tournament for Rock, Paper, Scissors, but I don't really include that in the count.
Scythe: I played this for the first time, and attended most of the demo. I did exceptionally poorly in the game, but found it interesting and learned how many of the mechanics worked. My difficulty with the game is that I missed a key part of the demo where specifics for end game scoring was discussed. During my game, I tried to fake it by observing what others were doing. That didn't work, but I had fund and want to try the game again.
Sagrada: This is another game I played for the first time. It is a light and fairly quick game. It is a dice drafting game where one lays down colored dice on a board in a required pattern (to make a stained glass window pattern). There are rules concerning the numbers and colors of the dice in each placed tile. I enjoyed playing it, but I experienced little bits of frustration when I would forget about a specific rule on dice placement. I did respectably, only losing by about 10% (the scores were 49, 49, and 45). I think this is a game with wide appeal to both people who play a lot of boardgames and those are more casual in the hobby.
7 Wonders: I played two pick up games of this, and it is one of my favorite games. My copy of the game is well used -- the box is falling apart and needs, as my friend Matt said, "some tape love".
Azul: I recently learned this game and, playing for the third time ever, had my worst score (I made a serious misplay that resulted in getting stuck with the maximum penalty in a game round). This is another game that is relatively short and has wide appeal to include casual boardgamers.
Wingspan: I brought my recently purchased copy to play at Prezcon. I absolutely love this game. It has engine building mechanics which I enjoy, has a limited number of decisions to make during one's turn that speeds up play, and has well made game components. The game designers also put a lot of research and effort to fully develop the birdwatcher theme. Cards are beautifully illustrated, the flavor text provides short facts about the birds, and the mechanics feel right to what the birds actually do in real life. Playing the game with Prezcon gamers put the game through a kind of playtesting wringer. Small corners of the rulebook needed to be investigated for clarity (example: the use of a "wildcard" feature and its interactions with other parts of the gamee), and we identified one typo in one of the goal cards (the Photographer goal, for anyone familiar with Wingspan, appears to be missing information). The scores were also very different from the previous games I had played. In my previous games, winning scores ranged from 77 to 81. In this game, 74 was the lowest score, second was 95, and 108 was the winner. Players pretty much play in parallel (there are no "screw with your opponent" mechanisms), and everyone at the table did a good job in building the bird collecting engines. I expect to be able to get at least one more game of this in, this week.
Driving down to Prezcon yesterday, I reflected upong what drives my enjoyment of the convention. It has taken me years to realize this, but a large part of the enjoyment is spending time with like minded people. This is also true for rowing. In both boardgaming and rowing, the activity brings me in contact with who enjoy breaking down an activity into its components and figuring them out. It also brings me into contact with people who, to varying degrees are competitive. For boardgaming specifically, this involves learning how a game works or learning deeper depths of the mechanics of a more familiar game. While I enjoy trying to win, the games I play, I also enjoy the interactions with players and the conversations after and between games. Prezcon provides the opportunity to have dinner with fellow gamers, chat with them, and share experiences about new games and new experiences with familiar games.
I played six games yesterdays: Scythe, Sagrada, two games of 7 Wonders, Azul, and Wingspan. There is also a tongue and cheek tournament for Rock, Paper, Scissors, but I don't really include that in the count.
Scythe: I played this for the first time, and attended most of the demo. I did exceptionally poorly in the game, but found it interesting and learned how many of the mechanics worked. My difficulty with the game is that I missed a key part of the demo where specifics for end game scoring was discussed. During my game, I tried to fake it by observing what others were doing. That didn't work, but I had fund and want to try the game again.
Sagrada: This is another game I played for the first time. It is a light and fairly quick game. It is a dice drafting game where one lays down colored dice on a board in a required pattern (to make a stained glass window pattern). There are rules concerning the numbers and colors of the dice in each placed tile. I enjoyed playing it, but I experienced little bits of frustration when I would forget about a specific rule on dice placement. I did respectably, only losing by about 10% (the scores were 49, 49, and 45). I think this is a game with wide appeal to both people who play a lot of boardgames and those are more casual in the hobby.
7 Wonders: I played two pick up games of this, and it is one of my favorite games. My copy of the game is well used -- the box is falling apart and needs, as my friend Matt said, "some tape love".
Azul: I recently learned this game and, playing for the third time ever, had my worst score (I made a serious misplay that resulted in getting stuck with the maximum penalty in a game round). This is another game that is relatively short and has wide appeal to include casual boardgamers.
Wingspan: I brought my recently purchased copy to play at Prezcon. I absolutely love this game. It has engine building mechanics which I enjoy, has a limited number of decisions to make during one's turn that speeds up play, and has well made game components. The game designers also put a lot of research and effort to fully develop the birdwatcher theme. Cards are beautifully illustrated, the flavor text provides short facts about the birds, and the mechanics feel right to what the birds actually do in real life. Playing the game with Prezcon gamers put the game through a kind of playtesting wringer. Small corners of the rulebook needed to be investigated for clarity (example: the use of a "wildcard" feature and its interactions with other parts of the gamee), and we identified one typo in one of the goal cards (the Photographer goal, for anyone familiar with Wingspan, appears to be missing information). The scores were also very different from the previous games I had played. In my previous games, winning scores ranged from 77 to 81. In this game, 74 was the lowest score, second was 95, and 108 was the winner. Players pretty much play in parallel (there are no "screw with your opponent" mechanisms), and everyone at the table did a good job in building the bird collecting engines. I expect to be able to get at least one more game of this in, this week.
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