Naturelich Games

The original idea of the GeekListAggregator was to provide an overview of useful GeekLists. With #7 I may already start to contradict this very rational economic concept of "utility". It is difficult to not stumble over funny GeekLists. I don't know about you, but I just can't get around them. I have therefore tried to dig a few lists which appeared funny (more or less). And let me say this upfront: there are zillions of more fun lists, it's just my "randomness" picking here ;)

But now, without further ado:

GeekList Aggregator #7: Funny geek lists

GeekList #11497: 101 Reasons To Buy A Game by Joe Huber
The numbers around (The) One Hundred seems to be particularly important to boardgame geeks. You have certainly seen a whole enchilada of worthy games to buy. But why should you *really* buy games. Joe gives us more than enough reason...

GeekList #9640: You know you're a Game Geek when... by Mark Christiansen
The ultimate list of what defines a true boargame geek.

GeekList #9864: The Top 10 Reasons You May Be Boardgame Geek... by Paul Boos
Here we go for a David Letterman type of list. This one is probably more to the point, so we call it the shorter ultimate list of waht defines a true boardgame geek.

GeekList #10585: Intelligence Report on Subject #M33P135: The Meeples by Dave Lartigue (aka Legmancer)
The all time classic on meeples! Also mentioned earlier here. Probably the funniest ever!

GeekList #10988: The Geek's Funniest Pictures: A Collection of BGG Photo Humor by Ender Wiggins
A wonderful list aggregating the funniest pictures available on the Geek. I hadn't thought you serious gamers had it in you!

GeekList #5881: Collection of funny Image Comments by Robert Zurfluh
Oh, God, these are hilarious. Unfortunately some overlap to the earlier ones, though. But I guess this one was first as it bears the lowest GeekList number...

GeekList #11594: Game Show Proposals Based on Board Games by Jim Berry
A novel idea, taking boardgames to the boardgamesshow-level. The first comment by Nate Cokerill was simply "I'm scared of this list. Too much time..." Guess, I agree... :D

I think that's enough for the night. Enjoy...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yehuda goes Hamlet!
A fun adaption of Hamlet's great monologue taken from Shakespeare's most famous play.

To play or not to play: that is not the question... Find it at Jergames.

Hilarious...

Can someone please put this on one of the boardgame podcasts? Are there any professional actors among the boardgaming community? I'd really like Mel Gibson to adapt this version...

Posted by Naturelich at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Despite Alfred and Mikko getting bored and particularly ekted disliking Ticket to Ride - the game continues to inspire a lot of fans to create more unofficial maps. Due to the newly added maps (whether official or unofficial) the game still remains fresh and fascinating for me. In fact, I will give Egypt and Cuba a try before year's end and this will keep the fire burning.

Zug um Zug remains to be very popular in Germany. One can wonder about people's creativity, but many fans continue to focus their attention on their home continent or home country. This has probably something to do with (local) patriotism, I guess. At the time of this writing, there are four (and now five) different takes by fans on creating a map for Germany. Each map is a unique design and has it's own challenges.
In addition, rumor of late has it that Alan R. Moon is about to finish work on the official German map. In this case, we will again be able to compare the designer's ideas with what fans have produced...

The unofficial map of Germany (by Sascha Görtz)

This fifth installment of a fan-produced map of Germany has been created by Sascha Görtz. This map is the first German map to contain ferry routes (the four earlier versions were published before TtR Europe was released). In addition, since the author originates from the very northern part of the country, there's more interconnections between northern cities. Düsseldorf is also on the map - which is Naturelich an important criterion for someone (like me) living there.

The map looks great, the design is really well done. My kudos! The map is now available via Sascha's updated forum post.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Kokliko has recently published some news about a self-produced map to Ticket to Ride featuring the Bretagne, France. Kokliko sent me an email requesting help for playtesting this map. I happily forward this request and encourage you to contact him via email. Please try to get in contact with him!

Here are the news as given in his email/the forum post:
Current Design Progress

• 1st version of the map will be finished soon (on paper, I'm waiting a bit before finalizing the electronic version that you can print and test)


• the towns are defined, I don't think any change will come for that before the "finale" version (or the one I gave you for testings)


• destination tickets are somewhat defined, I think they will be sharpened with test campaign.

Rules

• probably a mix between US / Europe / Mistery train


• no station (i don't like this principle, and the board will be minded in this way)


• ferries and tunnels will be present, or maybe another rule that give a supplemental constraint to the game


• I have to create cards which will give points for achieving other objectives then standard dsetinatiion tickets (maybe routes across all islands,...), on the same principle that Mistery Train (I think)

Test version
Please send me (=kokliko) your mail for testing this version.
Maybe I try to create the zipped map for "LAN" version for you can test it.

This test version will be ONLY send by e-mail to people that contact me (kokliko35--AT--yahoo.fr). The aim is to have the final version available freely for the most people (and not have many versions "circulating")

Posted by Naturelich at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Just a quick link to a nice post on Gaming in Pearland: Gaming Podcasts gives a great summary of current boardgame podcasts. Personally, I listen to BoardGameSpeak and Boardgames To Go - which are great. After reading this list I need to find some time to look at the others...

Posted by Naturelich at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Ticket to Ride PC game is a standalone program that allows players to enjoy Ticket to Ride on the computer. Basically, there's two modes in which this game may be played. The first option is the single-player mode. Here, you compete against as many as four different robots. The second option is to play the game online. Both the original Ticket to Ride as well as Ticket to Ride Europe contain a Web Card which allows the fortunate buyer to play both games online for one year - for free. During that time, one can play as many games as there is spare time but once that year is over, one is required to renew the subscription or buy another Days of Wonder game to get another Web Card. TtR online is probably one of the most popular online installments of a boardgame today. The publishers claim to have counted more than 2,000,000 online games, with a new game starting every 13 seconds. Due to this fact it's very easy to find someone playing Ticket to Ride online. The community that has evolved, includes hardcore players who have played as many as 3,000 games since the initial release of the online game in 2004. But it also includes guest players or casual players who only play the game every now and then.

I guess everyone is wondering:
Why should I pay €24.95 for the computer game if I can buy a webcard for €18.00 and play the game online for free? Well, Days of Wonder's website has prepared a list of arguments why we need this game:

• play the game in a high full-screen resolution


• new music, sound effects and animations


• an all new and exclusive Swiss map for 2-3 players


• a new web card for another year of online gaming

The question is: How valid are these arguments?

Discussing game features
The computer game graphics are much better than the online game. Since the full screen size may be used, there is much more details and it's much much easier to use. If you play a lot of online sessions you will definitely want to get the computer game. Believe me, it is worth it. For casual players this is not a major argument, so don't buy the game.

Moving to the second argument: new music, sound effects and animations are nice-to-haves. Fullstop. They look professional but not spectacular. Oh, and computer screens have seen more spectacular game graphics (since the 1990s) but the game has a certain boardgame vibe to it. The user interface is certainly very easy to use and very intuitive. The CD comes with several tutorials, explaining each map, the online gaming features, plus some application handling. Nice for newbies and "low-techs". The pro-player might have liked several more advanced features but I believe the implementers made a conscious decision to keep it very simple. Well done.

Languages
The game is available in English, French and German. Switching languages requires a game restart.

Single-player game
The single-player game allows you to play original Ticket to Ride (USA), Ticket to Ride Europe and the new map of Switzerland (see below). You may add as many as four different bots to play against.

• Longbot: prefers to play long routes, totally ignores the destination tickets and will try to end the game quickly before other players are able to complete the game. A very viable strategy on *any* map


• Directbot: prefers to take the most direct route between destinations.


• Nebulousbot: nebulous strategy and difficult to guess what Mr. Fog will be doing


• Dumbbot: Yeah, guess. These guys come in handy once you have lost a series of online games and need to re-establish your gamer's self-esteem. Then they are fun.

Online game
The online gaming feature is basically using the same technology as the existing online games. However, the Swiss map may only be played against other players using the computer game.

The new official map of Switzerland
The Swiss map was designed by Alan R. Moon specifically for this computer game and is not available as a stand-alone game or printed expansion. The map is designed for 2-3 players only and contains a lot of tunnels. The huge amount of tunnels has caused a "small" design change: locomotives (jokers) are not available. Instead, they are replaced by tunnel cards. The map contains several long routes and plenty of routes having a length of one. Combined with the other novelties, this generates a variant requiring players to go for new strategies.

Tunnel cards
Picking a tunnel card counts like drawing any other regular waggon card. Other than locomotives, players may therefore pick two tunnel cards per turn. The tunnel cards can be used to replace or complement the colored cards required to claim a tunnel route. However, they may *never* be used on a regular route. The rules to claim a tunnel are unchanged from TtR Europe.

New routes and destination tickets
On the game board some of the routes no longer link cities to cities, but cities to neighboring countries (France, Italy, Austria and Germany). As a complement, the game also contains new types of destination tickets. The well-known city-to-city tickets are supplemented by city-to-country tickets (linking a city to all of Switzerland's neighboring countries) and country-to-country tickets (2 from each country to all of Switzerland's other neighboring countries). These new types make use of a new scoring mechanism: The points gained at game's end are those of the highest connection completed, from among the list of possible country destinations marked on the ticket. If none of the possible connections was made, the only points lost are those corresponding to the lowest value on the ticket.

Naturelich my opinion
The highlight of the computer game is the new map which is playable both online and in the single-player setting. The Swiss map allows players to go for different strategies. After the first couple of games, no single strategy seemed superior. Depending on the combination of destination tickets different strategies need to be applied to be successful. Something which worked well in TtR USA or Europe may be applied in Switzerland as well: focussing on the longest routes, blocking, drawing plenty of tickets. However there are some new strategies, e.g.: creating a shortage in tunnel cards or in colored cards in combination with blocking.

I have often encountered the following tactical challenge: because the map has such a high number of short routes it gets pretty obvious where the players are headed. This makes it easier to block the opponent. Detours are more expensive as they might require players to go through one or more tunnels. They also slow you down: you need the appropriate colors first and then you possibly need one or more turns to claim (the short) routes. Probably due to the lacking locomotives it gets much trickier on this map to collect the right waggon colors. In TtR Europe this sometimes posed a problem during endgame. In TtR Switzerland it is a common problem to occur throughout the entire game. To counterbalance the blocking strategy the new destination tickets help. If you can't reach Germany across the boarder in Basel, you might want to use the connection from St. Gallen or elsewhere. The new tickets also allow you to secure a short 5 point connect between Germany and France and later expanding this to a big 13-pointer by also connecting Italy. Feel very lucky, if your first draw of destination tickets contains multiple city-to-country of country-to-coutnry tickets. It leaves you with a lot of strategic options to accomplish your "missions".

To sum it up: the new map adds new spice to a popular game. Altogether, if you like playing the online version and if your Web Card is about to expire you may as well pay an additional (€ 24.95 - € 18.00 = ) € 6.95 for the Swiss map. If you don't play TtR online you probably don't need the computer game either. It's as simple as that.

Oh, one more thing. So far I still seem to be the only one to own the computer game as I was unable to play the Switzerland game online. There is one player who actually has the game installed but we were only able to initiate rather unstable sessions. Let's hope these things get ironed out soon...

Posted by Naturelich at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (3)

The Chess Game in Colour blog published an interesting article about a chess variant. It is a form of cooperative chess played with color tiles. Cooperative chess uses the same moves as regular chess but changed from a competitive to a cooperative game thereby encouraging team work and creative thinking. Pieces need to be matched to make a good move, i.e. both pieces can leave the board (equivalent to a capture in classic chess) . It's possible to compete against the clock and match all pieces as quickly as possible. As an alternative, one can also try to finish the game in as few moves as possible.

Dominique Beyens, who maintains Chess Game in Colour, has created an online version of the game and hints to the interesting aspects of the game:

"- Could be used to teach children the basics of chess in a fun way.
- Games are played with a co-operative mindset while tournaments can
give them a competetive capacity.
- Can be played online globally in a manner similar to correspondence chess
- While beginners can play an easy introductory game, mental wizards
can make combinations and study end games."

Personally, I had never heard of such a chess variant before. So I just had to try it online, immediately. It is actually quite fun, although it felt totally strange and counter-intuitive. A completely different concept of thinking needs to be applied: no more over-protectiveness, no more "conspiracies", no more poisened offerings. It feels totally different.

If you like, give it a try at Chess Game in Colour and experience the difference between team work and competition...

Posted by Naturelich at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Antike which came in an edition of 1000 copies has sold out. The good news is: Eggertspiele is going to publish a second print run which is going to be available on November 28th. I figured this is just in time if you want to get this game for christmas. I am currently too busy studying, so I cannot play my own copy. But I am trying to follow this game on BoardGameGeek and on other gameblogs. In addition, a new dedicated (German) website is was up (Update 15-Nov-2005: the following link is no longer working. See comments: http://web5.a15177656.alturo-server.de/index.html) which contains a lot of pictures (also in highres) from Essen 2005 where you can see Mac Gerdts (the designer) preparing the Eggertspiele booth.

Posted by Naturelich at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last issue of GeekListAggregator focussed on GeekLists submitted by game designers. GLA #6 will look at lists about boardgame designers. Several GeekLists deal with the artisans of our hobby: the established and successful designers, wargame designers as well as the rising stars in boardgame design.

GeekList #5937: The best board game designers - as chosen by Boardgamegeek by Tom Vasel
Based on the total average Geek-rating for all their games and expansions, Tom Vasel has found the best designers. The actual disclaimer is a little bit more complicated, but Tom explains it well. #5397 compiles the who-is-who and truely describes the current boardgame designer "establishment": Andreas Seyfarth, Richard Ulrich, Reiner Knizia, Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, Francis Tresham, Martin Wallace, Rüdiger Dorn, Klaus Teuber, Wolfgang Kramer, Michael Kiesling, Richard Borg, Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Peter Olotka, Dirk Henn, Friedemann Friese, Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle, Richard Garfield, Rob Davieu, Sid Sackson, Steffan Dorra, Alan Moon, Michael Schacht, Frank Nestel, Uwe Rosenberg and Don Greenwood. Wow, what a list!

GeekList #11140: Rising Stars by Andy Parsons
Andy Parson has compiled this list to predict the designing stars of the future. He also takes the approach of using Geek ratings. His query included all designers who published one game in 2004/2005 with a rating of 6.5 or higher and who published not more than one or two games since 2000 with the same rating. This is a very promising list and it will be interesting to see how these predictions compare to the future reality of, say, 2008.

GeekList #5910: One Hit Wonders! Designers and/or publishers with only one credit on BGG by Thomas Eager
Thomas Eager has compiled a list of designers (or publishers) with only one game credit on BoardGameGeek. Compare this list to the One Hit Wonder's in Music.

GeekList #7253: Five Wargame Designers to Watch by M. Kirschenbaum
Unfortunately, I am not a wargamer. Some ten years ago we played Battletech and a few tabletops but this time is long gone. I am posting this list since it relates nicely to the topic and contains a lot of feedback and discussion. M. Kirschenbaum gives a subjective list of five wargame designers to watch out for: Bowen Simmons, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, Ben Hull, Adam Starkweather, and Markus Stumptner. The list was extended by several others and now includes Renaud Verlaque and Richard Sivèl.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Ticket to Ride PC game has arrived. I ordered the game from Days of Wonder's online shop and it arrived today. The unpsectacular packaging was pretty much the first thing which caught my full attention when returning home from Basel, Switzerland. As luck would have it, I direcly went back to Switzerland: Ticket to Ride PC features Alan R. Moon's official map of Switzerland.

The installation went smoothly. Since the game contains several tutorials (one for each map and another one for the online gaming area), I decided to watch the Switzerland tutorial. It's a bit lengthy but explains the rules in great detail. I chose to play against a Dumbbot first. The image above displays the results: DumbBot scores 31, Naturelich 144. Praise the lord, what a start! Well, obviously the DumbBot played really bad and I took all the time in the world to adjust to the new map. In fact, during the next games, I decided to play against a LongBot and he was a little bit better. Playing the Bots allowed me to quickly get a pretty good idea of possible strategies on the new map. And, of course, this map is *totally* different than any other Alan R. Moon Ticket to Ride game. Tunnels everywhere (who would have guessed?)... Short routes and a whole lot of transit-related tickets (connecting countries with other countries or Swiss cities with countries). It offers a whole new set of strategic opportunities, although it's too early for me to really judge, right now.

After I had finished playing the first few rounds I wanted to play an online game. I iniated a new game, but no one joined. It obviously caused some confusion in the chat and it appears you cannot join a game, if you don't own the PC game. Well, here I am willing to play this great game I was looking for so badly and then there is nobody to play with? Is everyone at sleep already, or am I like the first person to try this? Come on, Days of Wonder, you must be kiddin' me: I pay €24.95 for the new map of Switzerland and have nobody to play against except some DumbBots? I can't even play it like a regular board game.

I better stop ranting now. It's probably the lack of sleep over the last week, anyway. Keep your fingers crossed for Saturday and Sunday. I have some terrible studying ahead of me and definitely need a few breaks every now and then...

Posted by Naturelich at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Excerpt from inofficial European map for Zug um Zug (c) by Klaus de Groote and Dominik de Groote. Zug um Zug is designed by Alan R. Moon and copyrighted by Days of Wonder

The European coninent seems to be a hot topic in the fan-community of Ticket to Ride. Klaus de Groote and Dominik de Groote from Altdorf in Bavaria have produced a new map extension to Spiel des Jahres 2004 winner Zug um Zug. It is the fourth fan-produced expansion map focussing on Europe.

The map
It's humongous!
The map comes on 20 pages and spans not only Europe (from Iceland to Volgograd) but also the African North Coast (e.g. cities like Algier, Tunis and Tripolis) . The looks of the map are really nice: it shows both a contour profile as well as the current political borders. The authors have even made it usable for the colorblind. The map is playable under the original game rules (i.e. no tunnels, ferries or stations as introduced in official Ticket to Ride Europe).

The blank template to create destination tickets (c) by Klaus de Groote and Dominik de Groote. Zug um Zug is designed by Alan R. Moon and copyrighted by Days of Wonder.

Download
The map is mono-lingual and shows the German city names, however the download page is available in English and in German. Note, the map file is about 16 MByte in size.

Posted by Naturelich at 7:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

There is a big hype in the web industry about mapping applications. One particularly famous example is Google Local (or Google Maps). Well, have you ever thought about playing Risk on GoogleMaps?

A first version - which allows you to play with your buddies in front of your PC -
is available at http://www.ashotoforangejuice.com/gmrisk.html. In addition, a multiplayer version might be coming with v2.0.

From a boardgamer's perspective there are better implementations of the Risk game, but the integration with Google Maps adds new possibilities. Personally, I believe there is much more to get out of this technology then this first implementation realizes. Use your imagination here...

Some ideas for Risk (or Risk clones) integrating with actual maps:

• Play on different territories such as current political territories or zoom in to a particular region, such as your home town.


• Zooming in / out for combat on more detailed levels


• In a multiplayer variant, each player could be identified with their home region. This could be the basis for interesting new missions (such as Capture the home territoriy of 2 players).


• Armies / soldiers get diverted by certain business types (I mean pizza services here) in their area. This mechanism would allow modifications of dice rolls.


• Play historic battles on very realistic maps


• etc.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Days of Wonder shipped my copy of Ticket to Ride PC game. That's definitely excellent news, isn't it? Well, basically it would be great, but unfortunately I am on a business trip and will not be able to play the game before the weekend.

But anyway: if you are interested in obtaining a copy for yourself you may want to visit the Days of Wonder Online Shop.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Der Große Fluss (The Big River) is a scenario for The Settlers of Cantan (Die Siedler von Catan) and its' extensions. The scenario was a free giveaway during the Spiel 2005 in Essen. If you live in Europe, another way of obtaining a copy freely, is by ordering something else from Catan Shop (They put it on top of any order, as long as supply lasts).
The scenario consists of three connected hexagons, replacing three tiles from the original game: The Big River springs from the mountains, runs through the hills, branches out in the swamp as a Delta and finally reaches the sea. As the river is rich in gold players want to build as many streets and settlements on the river banks. Ultimately, the collected gold helps scoring additional victory points.

Game preparation
Place the expansion with its' delta adjacent to the sea (edge of frame). Remove the following tiles from the base game: 1 mountain, 1 brick and the desert and put them back into the game box. The remaining tiles are used to setup the game regularly. However, instead of placing a number, the swamp field is the starting field in which the robbers start. No settlement max be founded adjacent to the swamp during the Gründungs phase.

The Game
The regular rules apply. Additionally, each road built on a river tile as well as each settlement and city built on an intersection with a river tile receives one gold point. A settlement or a city at the placed on the very end of the Delta (where the gold nugget is located) receives two gold points. Each player receives one victory point for every three gold points. To win the game, 12 victory points are required.

Seafarers
In addition, a ship adjacing the delta receives one gold point, as long as it is not moved. If a player loses one gold point by moving the ship, this may also cause the loss of the corresponding victory point. To win the game, an additional 2 victory points are required.

Cities and Knights
Knights on intersections at the river tiles do not earn a gold point. Otherwise, the Seafarer rules apply also to streets, if the "Diplomat" is in play. To win the game, an additional 2 victory points are required.

Naturelich my opinion
Der grosse Fluss is a neat addition to the rich Catan universe. It does not add something spectatcular. Nor does it change gameplay substantially. It moves the desert to the border and makes it more attractive to build a settlement there. I could live without owning this extension. Only if you are a hardcore Catan collector you should hurry and order something from Catan Shop or look for a copy on ebay.
The main purpose of this scenario unfolds if you have a friend who is a die-hard Catan-fan. If he does not own this, The Big River scenario is a nice small christmas or birthday present. Something which nicely adds to a major present and makes the unwrapping process more exciting for any Catan fan...

Posted by Naturelich at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BoardGameGeek is a large community. Their membership also includes numerous game designers. Several have actively contributed to the Geek. Either with comments on their own games or with interesting comments on the industry as a whole. I think this is reason enough to look at their own GeekLists in more detail and maybe even encourage more designers to provide us with similar insights. What do you think?

GeekList Aggregator #5 focussing on GeekLists by game designers...

GeekList #11076: My Four Years at Avalon Hill by Alan R. Moon
Alan R. Moon, designer of Elfenland (Spiel des Jahres 1998) and Zug um Zug (Spiel des Jahres 2004) has published this GeekList about his time at game publisher Avalon Hill. This list includes 15 games which Alan has worked on. He provides numerous interesting details on his experiences with games such as Gunslinger, Civilization, Acquire and Risk. This one definitely is a must read.

GeekList #888: The origins of my games by Marcel-André Casasola Merkle
Marcel-André Casasola Merkle might have been one of the first game designers to publish a GeekList dealing with their own games. He started posting Elements on May 31st 2003, followed by Verräter in December the same year. Since then, his list has grown and currently contains 10 games. The latest addition, Fiese Freunde Fette Feten, was submitted on June, 16th 2005. Marcel-Andre provides a small anecdote for most of the games. It's really fun to read this!

GeekList #2063: The origins of my games by Andrea Angiolino
Italian game designer Andrea Angiolino shares details about what it means to be a game designer in Italy. As he points out, most of his games are not generally known to the average gamer. Maybe you are familiar with Wings of War? I am afraid this is part of what it means to be a game designer in a smaller game country such as Italy. Nonetheless, this list shares very interesting insights on the industry.

Should you be aware of any other GeekLists published by game designers, I would really love to find about them. Please drop me a GeekMail or simply leave a comment. I'd love to extend this GeekListAggregator a bit.

GeekList #728: Desginers' Own Favorites by Rick Heli
This list has actually not been published by a game designer but many game designers have put forward their favorite games. Most notable posts done by Bruno Faidutti and Peter Donnelly themselves. But also some rumored or historic favorites of Reiner Knizia, Steve Jackson, Wolfgang Kramer, Richard Garfield, Alan R. Moon, Friedemann Friese, Michael Schacht and Stefan Dorra.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mark Jackson and Steven Glenn are currently presenting The One Hundred blog aka The Official & Completely Authoritative 100 Best Games of All Time Ever Without Question"... so there.

To quote Stephen Glenn:

In the waning months of 2004, I asked a group of dedicated, hardcore gamers to send me a list of their top 15 games of all time. I specifically asked them to list games that they most enjoyed playing -- not necessarily games that they felt deserved special honor or recognition. I also requested that they list the games in order (from most favorite to least favorite).

Based on their responses and my calculations, here is the Official & Authoritative 100 Best Games of All Time Ever Without Question. You can view the list in its entirety [Mark: well, once it's all published you can - I'll come back & stick a link right here] or you can work your way backwards from 100 to 1, just like those irrestible VH1 specials.

It should be noted that the list has a decided Euro-slant. This should not be surprising, considering the participants. If you asked a group of wargamers or RPGers the same question, you'd get a much different list. Beyond that, the list should speak for itself. I hope you enjoy it and that it sparks much conversation & pleasant debate.

And, yes, Stephen, we definitely enjoy! :D Thanks for putting this on the air.

(via gameblog)

Posted by Naturelich at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After Essen, the BoardGameGeek is full of discussion about William Attia's Caylus. As far as I was able to follow up on the discussion, BoardGameGeek saw at least one new Caylus related posting each day since Essen 2005. In addition, numerous boardgame blogs also followed up on the secret number one game of Essen 2005. Or they were just writing about the fair in general. Lots of pictures have been published, too.

You will probably have had plenty of opportunities to make up your own mind. I have seen some controversial reviews on some of the games. But who is right and who is wrong? Which games will remain? Which ones got a really good rating by the BoardGameGeek-community? Which games were not bought after playtesting them?
Lots of questions. To shed some light on these issues, there's several GeekLists out there providing answers...

GeekList Aggregator #4 compiles the Essen Spiel 2005 Aftermath.
Find out whether how your personal view correlates with the majority of the Geeks out there...

GeekList #11001: Essen 2005 - Fairplay Scout Voting by Wolfgang Friebe
Traditionally, the German Gamer magazine Fairplay runs a voting at their booth during each Spiel fair. Any visitor may vote on games they have seen. Fairplay then publishes a first barometer of gamer's opinion while the fair is still running. Each game which receives more than 50 votes and gets an average score of 2.5 or better (1 = excellent,..., 6 = very bad) makes it to the list. During Spiel 2005, Fairplay collectd ~6700 votes. This GeekList displays the results after the final voting (Sunday evening).
By the way: a little hint for the upcoming Essen Spiel fairs. The Fairplay Scout is also an excellent source of information when you are short on time during your visit. Check out their booth and take note of the top 10 games mentioned on their list. These will definitely be worth seeing. Oh, did I mention: Caylus made it to the top of the list with an average score of 1.73 (128 votes).

GeekList #10955: Games you didn't buy after playtesting in Essen by Alexander Schmalz
Alexander Schmalz raised *the* question. Actually several very important questions: Which games should be avoided? What looked good at first sight but didn't make it through Essen playtesting? What are the really annoying games? Some of us won't like the answers. Of course, this GeekList is extremly subjective. But nonetheless - it's interesting to see the reasoning in some of the comments. Oh, yeah, and some relatively high ranking games are mentioned on this list. Games which are currently at an average rating of 7.81, 7.32, 7.28, 6.98.

GeekList #10978: Free Stuff @ Essen 2005 by mac edwin
Well, in terms of free goodies this list shows what you might have missed (or maybe have to look for on ebay). In my opinion the number of free giveaways could have been larger, but at least we got a free promo card for Caylus, a Settlers-scenario, Diamanten Joe for Niagara, an extension to China and several others. I am not saying free stuff is necessarily good. I am just saying it is nice and may be fun. Mac Edwin's GeekList shows it all. If only someone could provide this information *before* I go to visit Essen 2006. Oh, and don't forget to mention the exhibition hall and booth numbers... ;)

Posted by Naturelich at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

White Christmas - One of thirty event cards included in Ticket to Ride: WIld Wild West

Juanjo Roig and José Carlos de Diego have now published an English translation of their magnficient expansion to Ticket to Ride, called Wild Wild West. This expansion basically adds 30 event cards to the game which bring new life to Ticket to Ride (well, it was not dead but I have played it soooo often, it's always great to be able to add something new to the game).

If you are interested in further information about Wild Wild West, I suggest to read my original post about Wild Wild West, or the original translation as posted on this site.

Far and foremost, you should get the English version of the game. It is available on: http://ludere.ual.es/bsk/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=1210.

Posted by Naturelich at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today, I took Die Dolmengötter to a bigger group. It's sad how friends and family have to suffer from this boardgame obsessed person. But anyway: it was time for three three-player games.

I am still not ready for a thorough review. But Die Dolmengötter is really fascinating. I think I might be *really* hooking up to the game. Although I normally don't like no-luck games - this one seems promising... It is so simple, yet challenging. With every game I have played, I discover more layers and I do not see when this will stop. All reviews I have read (in German) so far have high praise for the game and I can only stress this: it's really good and challenging!

Let's move on to the session report: explaining the rules was easier this time. It takes a maximum of 5 minutes (and, yes, this includes some questions and a lot discussion going back and forth). The game only uses very few rules and they are rather easy to grasp. Yet, the gameplay that evolves is still tricky, interesting and fun. It may even be called complex during certain times. However, this does not mean you have to wait some hours before the other players take their turn. It moves forward pretty nicely.

After explaining the rules we started the first game. The smallest player begins. Note, game author: this is *not* funny if you are 6 ft 6 in (198cm)! During the first two games I had an advantage, because I had already played the game before and PJ+MM were still climbing the learning curve. The third game went to MM who really hit PJ and me hard there. Without further ado: here are some pictures of the session.

Final board position - Session 2 of Die Dolmengötter

Mid-game board position in our third session of Die Dolmengötter

Posted by Naturelich at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)