Naturelich Games

The Yehuda - Gaming and Blogging in the Holy Land blog has a great article on celebrities playing board games. Yehuda has obviously put a lot of effort into compiling the list, together with some sources.

Now, the bad news: My playlist is not at all, not even remotely similar to that of celebrities. Bad luck for me. While I was clicking the link to Yehuda, I had already gotten my hopes up to play a round of Die Macher with Wil Smith. But... ;)

Better luck next time. Until then, I have highlighted the matches:

Top 6 List: Board Game Night: Naturelich vs. Celebrities

Number 6
The first crossover is the Beastie Boys who like playing Mah-Jongg on their tour bus. I presume they are a group of 4 anyway so I would probably not be welcome in joining them, would I?(unless somebody has thought of a 5-player variant for Mah-Jongg?!)

Number 5
In addition, if I were about 25-27 years younger, I might have considered competing against Beyonce Knowles in Connect Four (yawn).

Number 4
Same is true for Catherine Zeta-Jones. Although I would love to engage her (in a game) ,1she only plays Yahtzee, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. At least here is some potential to introduce her to Um Krone und Kragen.

Number 3
Since I don't know Bridge, I will have to take on Bill Gates in a game of Chess - but I doubt I will win - he is simply too smart.

Number 2
Oh, oh, and here is the perfect match: Jenna Fischer plays Carcassonne, Lost Cities and Bohnanza. Yippie! Finally! But who is Jenna Fischer? I'd rather play Jennifer Aniston, but she only enjoys Scrabble and Poker. Not a Geek's lady, apparently... :(
... Maybe I could interest them both in a game of Ladybohn?

Number 1
Wil Wheaton. Yes, Wesley Crusher. Yes, yes, I know. The "geek" from Star Trek - The Next Generation. This weekend, he played Apples to Apples with his family and created a link to the game on BGG. He even has a BGG profile and his collection also includes Carcassonne, Munchkin and Pirate's Cove. Great, I'd love to have him over for a game night :D

Okay, that's enough of my fantasies. I shall 7111, it's 14675.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading Naturelich Games on the Xbox 360

This blog is about board games. While I enjoy playing these games in a real-world, social environment I am also a technology fan. Somewhat job-related, I believe... ;)

Reading blogs via RSS feed
I try to stay up-to-date by reading several blogs with a feed reader (FeedDemon). At the minute, I am looking at 50+ RSS feeds. This extra piece of software makes the process of digesting content pretty comfortable. It helps me to reduce my personal signal-to-noise ratio. Some board game blogs are a must-read: each and every article is worth reading (or at least browsing) through. Other blogs might be somewhat less interesting, as they might talk more about wargames (but not exclusively) which is not as interesting for me. The feed reader software helps me to digest these lower priority blogs with topic-related "Watches" and other nice features.

Listening to podcasts
Some blogs come in an audio format, a podcast. Basically, this is like a little radio show that deals only with board games. Currently, I automatically download these podcasts via iTunes. They are then synchronized with my iPod. Unfortunately, I have to carry my iPod to my car manually (which introduces a big potential for errors into the process, as I am usually rather tired in the morning and I regularly tend to forget the thing). If the iPod successfully makes it into the car, it is then hooked into the car audio system. What follows is pure joy: listening to 30 - 60 minutes of "board games radio".

Why is the current method not fully satisfying?
Although I have started to develop habits for reading blog content via RSS feeds and listening to podcasts in my car, I am not fully satisfied with it. I would rather enjoy reading my favorite blogs (the ones with must-read content) in my living room while lying on the couch. I don't have a Media Center PC which could make things a little bit easier. However, I own an XBox 360 and I have just seen a piece of software that streams RSS feeds to the XBox 360: XBstream. This is an additional method I will try...

[...Naturelich goes away for 15 minutes and has now read his own blog in his living room...]

How I read my favorite blogs on my XBox 360
After installing XBStream, I am now reading my favorite blogs in my living room. It is much more relaxed on the couch than in this chair at my computer desk. The screen is much much bigger, too. It's probably still not the best of all solutions as a Media Center PC might easily do the trick. However, it's the best I can do with what I have.

In addition, I can also listen to my favorite podcasts while enjoying an Xbox Live Arcade game playing against my friends online. The "board game of choice" is currently UNO, only because it is the only board game available for online play. However, Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan and Alhambra have recently been announced for release on XBox 360.

And now, I am off to the couch, listening to The Dice Tower's interview with Martin Wallace.

Posted by Naturelich at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Renowned German game designer Wolfgang Kramer seems to have a reputation for pasted-on themes. Yehuda has now posted a fun what-if-Wolfang-Kramer-had-designed-Bridge post on the Gone Gaming blog. Enjoy...

Posted by Naturelich at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a huge fan of my XBox 360 this bit of news is really exciting. On Games Convention in Leipzig, Microsoft has announced three classic board games to be made available at XBox Live Arcade. Unsurprisingly, they have chosen some of the most popular games: Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Alhambra.

Head over to Ozymandias to see some screenshots.

Source: Boardgamenews, Ozymandias

And you know what I think? Days of Wonder and Alan R. Moon should really consider adding Ticket to Ride...

Posted by Naturelich at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do multiple unplayed games in your collection bother you? Is the space in your game cabinet limited? Is your partner double-checking any board game expenses? Do you own too many games - more than you will ever be able to play? Are you happy with playing copies someone else owns?

If you want answers to these wonderful questions head over to Matthew Gray's Weblog and make use of his wonderful online Game Size Calculator.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Michael Menzel, the graphic designer for Thurn und Taxis has released a Making of Thurn und Taxis. He describes how his work started in Autumn 2005 with cover design work. During the game fair Essen 2005, Michael met Karen and Andreas Seyfarth the game designers. Interestingly enough, at that point in time, the game had more than the set of 4 support characters. These were planned to become regular cards. I presume these were to be taken in a similar fashion as in Puerto Rico (but this is speculation).
After the Essen fair, Michael continued his work by diving into the archives of the Thurn und Taxis family. With support by Peter Styra (Archive Director) this step was key in creating the dense and authentic design of the game.
The development of the board and the map was a collaborative effort between publisher, game designers and graphic designer. Michael's article includes images of three earlier versions of the board design. Although not too much detail is visible, this section clearly hints at how labor-intensive the graphic design process can be.
During this process it was decided to add small city-specific illustrations to the board. This required additional research to identify and create the sights as well as a lot of work during the Christmas holiday season. The design had to be finished in January in order to make the Nuremberg 2006 release.
And it did. It was probably during this time that a small Easter Egg was added to the board: A small toy (rocking horse) is displayed in the city of Nürnberg (just above the "r") as an homage to one of the biggest game events of the year and probably also to the over-hours required to make this deadline.

Altogether Michael Menzel has created a wonderful look behind-the-scenes providing plenty of interesting details on this year's Spiel des Jahres.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had recently started to collect statistics on the games I play. I am using the excellent BoardGameGeek - Games Played feature for this purpose and it continues to be a lot of fun to keep this history. A while back, I had reported on the Five and Dimes of the first quarter of 2006 (see Five & Dime List - Q1/2006). After the first six months, the first games have become Dimes (in Q1 we were only looking at Fives). Interestingly enough, both Dimes have been authored by Andreas Seyfarth (or at least co-authored by him). The Ticket to Ride series continues to be very strong for me with a total of 21 plays (adding the totals of all games from the series)

I will leave you with the statistics (showing totals for the entire first half year of 2006) and a short comment...

Dimes

• Puerto Rico (10): I started playing Puerto Rico in 2006. Having played the game 6 times in the first quarter and now 4 times in the second quarter seems to prove that I like the game considerably. However, I shall still think of myself as being a novice in this game.


• Thurn und Taxis (10): After I had seen the advertisement in Spielbox I immediately pre-ordered the game from Amazon. I think I liked it right from the beginning after opening the game box. If you are interested, you can read my very fresh (and enthusiastic) first thoughts in this post or an extensive review, here. For me, Thurn und Taxis is really one of the best games of 2006.

Fives

• Ticket to Ride - Märklin Edition (8): Ticket to Ride and all its clones have been rather popular with me. The Märklin edition is a sure candidate to become a dime before the end of the year.


• Ticket to Ride Europe (7): A little bit older but only slightly less popular. Considering that this game is a little bit older than Märklin, I guess the seven plays are even more solid...


• Memoir '44 (7): Great game. Rumor has it that publisher Days of Wonder is working on an online version of the game. In this case, expect the numbers to go uuuuup...


• Ticket to Ride (6): The one with the original US map. Expect an rejuvenating game with the upcoming Essen 2006 extension


• Die Dolmengötter (6): This game has seen four plays in first quarter but only two in the second. It will be interesting to see, if this one makes it to a dime...

Follow-Ups

• Carcassonne (4): The classic and ever so popular. Simple and still good...


• Jenga (4): One evening has brought you here, dear.


• Mah-Jongg (4): That's four entire full Mah-Jongg games. Yes, these are looong...


• Power Grid (4): Next to Thurn und Taxis this is probably my personal favorite discovery of the second quarter


• Seeräuber (3): Buccanner / Seeräuber is a quick and nice little game. Bought this one as it was nonminated for SdJ 2006. Seeräuber might make it to a five (70% chance) or a dime (20% chance).

Recurring

• La Città (2): Although it is pretty long we managed to play a second game this quarter. Hope to bring it to four by the end of the year (once each quarter).


• Torres (1): Not played in a loooong while. Still a great game. Thanks to Shelak and Raven for picking it.


• Elasund - The First City of Catan (1): Played last in 2005 directly after Essen. I personally played like a disaster. Need to improve here (out of personal ambition).

First plays

• Power Grid (see above)


• Seeräuber (see above)


• Age of Napoleon (1): Actually, we played it maybe 0.25 times. Not sure whether we will try again...


• Carcassonne - The Discovery (1): Not among my favorite Carcassonne games. Would like to give it another try...

Expansions

• Memoir '44 - Eastern Front (3): We like this one...


• Caracssonne - Inns & Cathedrals (2): Still a good expansion...


• Caracssonne - Traders & Builders (1): Still a good expansion...


• Carcassonne - The Tower (1): This year's Carcassonne expansion. The card tower is nice...


• Power Grid - Italy/France (1): Actually, we have tried Italy but not France. Considering that Italy won the FIFA Worldcup I wish we had played France ;-)

Posted by Naturelich at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have used the past few weeks to acquire a couple of new games. In fact, these are somewhat older games (some of them already out of print). The major source was ebay (who would have guessed) and some really good lcoal board game shops. Here is the list with current BGG ratings in brackets:

• The Princes of Florence by Wolfgang Kramer / Richard Ulrich (8.1)
• Goa by Rüdiger Dorn (7.9)
• Hansa by Michael Schacht (7.3)
• Um Krone und Kragen (English title: To Court The King) by Thomas Lehmann (6.7)

I hope I like them as much as the people who had reported in their blogs / podcasts / BGG posts... :)

Posted by Naturelich at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Upon visiting Munich this past weekend I discovered the Hans im Glück Verlag building. The publisher of Carcassonne, Thurn und Taxis, Hacienda and many many other popular board games is located close to Munich's Olympic Stadium. I found it astonishing how small the building actually is. Maybe this is just a distribution center? Who knows?

Hans im Glück Verlag building

Main door

The mailbox

Posted by Naturelich at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Martin Wallace presented a prototype of Tempus during the 2005 Essen show. Spielbox now reports on the game being shipped to Pro Ludo's distribution center in Germany. While this happens maybe in mid-June the game is scheduled for a July 17th release.
Some pictures of the game components are available at the Spielbox site, here.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, DHL delivered two new additions to the Naturelich Game Shelf (TM -- *g* ). They are nothing new, just some older games that I got for a nice discount. Sometimes I just cannot resist...

The first game is a great two-player game, called Jambo. The game is designed by Rüdiger Dorn and illustrated by Michael Menzel and got some interesting discussion on the blogs I read:

• Traditional Game Reviews


• The Game Ranch


• BoardGameNews

The second buy is a wargame. Shelak and I recently talked about trying some wargames. I selected Age of Napoleon - mainly because it was available at a discount. It's been a quick buy as I did not want to put that much time into the selection process. I mainly relied on the Geek rating and comments there, plus Chris Farrell's After Action Report. Since I appreciate Chris' critical judgements I guess the game will be good for us. The map and game components certainly look decent. The rules are gonna be trickier but I'll read up over my visit to Anaheim, CA next week.

Anyone who would like recommend interesting "beginner" 2-player wargames is welcome. Should not necessarily be WWII for me, as we have Memoir '44 for this theme (well, actually I might be interested in more WWII themed games but we have not played half the scenarios so I currently feel that there is much much more to explore). It can be a little bit heavier than Memoir '44 though. I guess a playing time of 2-3 hours is about right :D

Posted by Naturelich at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few years in my gaming life were heavily affected by Battletech. One website that has been particularly interesting is Brick Commander. This site is devoted to recreate Battletech LEGO miniatures. This includes everything from Battlemechs, Aero/Space-units, Vehicles, and Structures. There is tons of images, some displaying computer-generated models, others showing real-world LEGO-build Battlemechs.
A great place to start is the gallery to get a first impression...

Happy Anniversary Brick Commander...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Since the beginning of 2006 I have made it a habit to track all games I have played on BGG. It's simply a great feature of the Geek. So far, there are no Dimes in the list. Had someone asked me three months ago whether there would be some Dimes on the list I would have proclaimed: 100% yes. As it turns out - there are quite a few Fives and several others which got really close.

So here is Naturelich's Official Five & Dime List for the first quarter of 2006 with comments where appropriate.

Dimes
Currently none.

Fives

• Puerto Rico (6): Played this game for the first time in this quarter. Can you believe it? And, yes, it's really good!


• Ticket to Ride (5): Continuously popular. The entire TtR family...


• Ticket to Ride Europe (5): ...is something I cannot resist. And with the addition of...


• Ticket to Ride - Märklin Edition (5): ...it has even become worse. Projected to be a Dime by year-end.


• Memoir'44 (5): Enthusiasm for this game started last year but continues to be strong in 2006.

Follow-Ups

• Die Dolmengötter (4): I really hate this game not being in the Fives


• Jenga (4): All in one evening, but fun...


• Thurn und Taxis (4): Extremely promising candidate for one of the first Dimes before the end of Q2

Recurring

• Carcassonne (1): Yep, it's still on the list. Actually played with the first two expansions...


• Raub Ritter (1): Simple and fun.


• Mah-Jongg (2): Looooong but fun.


• Aqua Romana (1): Too complicated for regular play


• Bohnanza (1): What can I say? Played this one in conjunction with High Bohn.


• Scrabble (1): Great filler

First plays

• Caylus (1): Huge urge to play again.


• La Città (1): dito


• Timbuktu (1): Maybe I'll play this again.


• The Sudoku Game (1): Works best as a solo game


• A Game of Thrones (1): Huge urge to play again

Predicted to be played never, never again

• Confusion: Fun, but will probably not see light again...

Posted by Naturelich at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I am simply and utterly stunned by the first pictures of the new Days of Wonder game Cleopatra and the Society of Architects (aka Kleopatra und die Baumeister, or Cléopâtre et la société des Architectes).

DoW is pretty famous for their fabulous game components - but what these new pictures suggest is extreme. Let's hope the game (designed by Bruno Cathala und Ludovic Maublanc) plays as well as these components suggest.

Check the pictures on these pages:

• Les jeux de Ludo - (a blog in French)
• Boardgame News: GAMA Trade Show 2006 Report: March 14, 2005 - Part 1 (Day 2) (in English - scroll down to see the pics)
• Spielbox "Foto-PEEP" (in German)

Posted by Naturelich at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Michael Menzel is illustrating games for about two years now. He now provides a personal webpage with a lot of details about his work. Michael has illustrated the following games for publishers like Ravensburger, Kosmos, Queen Games, Hans im Glück, etc.:

Nuremberg 2006

• Thurn und Taxis (Hans im Glück)


• Hart an der Grenze (Kosmos)


• Rätsel in der Leseburg (Ravensburger)


• Kreuz und Quer (Kosmos)


• Der Dieb von Bagdad (Queen Games)


• Terra Nova (Winning Moves)

Essen 2005:

• Aqua Romana (Queen Games)


• Zauber Stauber (Kosmos)


• Hazienda (Hans im Glück)


• Angkor (Schmidt Spiele)


• Tooor" (Kosmos)


• Raub Ritter (Queen Games)

Essen 2004

• Jambo (Kosmos)


• Razzia (Amigo)


• Submarine (Winning Moves)

Personally, I like his still quite a bit, so I will be happily checking out his site every now and then.
Note, his homepage is in German but contains many pictures and should be pretty self-explainable for non-German speakers.

Posted by Naturelich at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)

...to say that I am still alive. I have been working a lot on the weekend's session reports. Hope you like the pictures... I also added some pics to the Christmas gaming sessionreports. So, if you like, have a look at the December 2005 link on the main page.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark Jackson, who recently joined Mark Johnson on the Boardgames To Go podcast, has published the Five & Dime lists for 2005 on his blog aka pastor guy. Mark is gathering these statistics from experienced board gamers to analyze the "Most Played" games each year. I have to digest the results and take a closer look at them. As of now, I only link to the relevant entries (also for future reference) and add some quick comments:

• Five & Dime 2005: Most Played Games: Ticket to Ride wins the Five & Dime list for the second time in a row. Any bets for next year? I'd be willing to wager a few Euros (or Dollars) on a popular game starting with C and ending with aylus. But maybe there is hope for another gem this year?
• Five & Dime 2005: Dimes (10+ Played Games): These games were played more than ten times by the majority of voters. Top 2 games similar to last year and a strange newcomer called: For Sale. Never heard of it? Is it really that good?
• Five & Dime 2005: Nickels (5-9 Played Games): Games that got played at least 5 times but not more often than 9 times. Shadows Over Camelot at the top. Another Days of Wonder title. Must have been a successful two years for them, right?
• Five & Dime 2005 Fresh Faces: New entries for 2005 with no single dominating game (as in previous years). But Diamant, another game designed by Alan R. Moon (co-authored with Bruno Faidutti) makes it to the top. Alan R. Moon seems to hit the market's current taste?!

Note: Although I totally recommend listening to the podcast, a short write-up of the Five & Dime history is available here.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What kind of question is that? Am I serious? Yes, really, why do we need them? We have the BoardGameGeek and Boardgamenews and Spielbox (Germany) and many, many others. Susan Rozmiarek has written a wonderful article entitled Blogs vs BGG on The Game Ranch.

Apparently, several BGG users were concerned that too much good content was moved from a centralized focal point - the BoardGameGeek site - to the blogosphere (or however you want to call that). Their line of argument: Board game blogs need to touch interesting topics, otherwise they would not be read. Blog authors put a lot of time into updating their site. All this great content is now missing on the Geek and distributed via "zillions" (well, "The One Hundred" blogs maybe) of sites. This has become / might become / will become a nuisance for die-hard BGG users.

I simply could not disagree more. For me, BGG is to the board game community what Google is for the internet. I use BGG as a starting point to research information on a particular game. Maybe I am looking on information about a Christmas present or I would like to be kept informed about news or inofficial expansions for a game I love. BGG is THE resource to find out. I use the Games Played feature. I like the statistics on how often my favorite game was played in January 2006 vs December 2005 (did they sell a lot of copies over Christmas?). I like browsing the GeekLists every now and then. I even subsrcibe to some users posting via RSS. The Geek is great! Fullstop and no doubt about it.

However, as much as the Geek helps you to find information - it also keeps the most valuable pieces hidden behind megabytes of data junk. A while ago, I was looking On the value of GeekLists. It is similar with all the forum posts. The Ticket to Ride forums provide us with 282 posts in the session reports, 89 threads in General articles and 29 threads under Variants. And let me tell you: there is wonderful stuff, but also a lot of background noise (junk).

Here is a typical BGG experience.
Have a look at the GeekLists being available on the BGG homepage now:

To me, that list is frightening. Read what I am thinking in milliseconds when my eyes go through the list.

OK, what's at the top? Must be important or hot or something. Nuremberg is on. Any GeekLists available? "Flaw or Virtue? You decide." What should I decide? Should I open this list? No, probably not interesting. Next. "The Original (1980) Games 100 - 25 years ago"- okay kind of nice, but it does not tell me anything about the new Nuremberg releases I am looking for. OK, forget reading them all, just glance for the word Nuremberg. *R.E.M.* Oh - there we go. "Nuremberg 2006 >>> Most Wanted Edition". Click. OK. The list is by locusshifter. Don't know him. His motto: "It's not stupid It's Advanced." Button: "I'm Advanced". Cool. Let's see how advanced this list is and what's hot at Nuremberg. Should I read his intro? No. Don't bother. First game: Los Mampfos. No image found. Somehow a game about donkeys and pooping appeals to locusshifter. What? Why do I care? Some offending language follows. I feel disappointed already. So what's next? Fiji. No image. Not interesting. Oh, there: Cleopatra and the Society of the Architects. Cool -- read the announcement a few days ago by Days of Wonder. So, what's his advanced comment for this one? Bits, bits, bits...? I don't get it. Clicks back. Naturelich frustrated. Leaves BGG

And here is how I follow blogs:

Continue reading "Who needs board game blogs?" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

When we play Die Dolmengötter, we always need to check the manual for the initial distribution of dolmens and stones. These numbers vary with the numbers of players. The reason for this is probably to keep game balance and avoid sizing issues of the game board.
I was fed up with looking it up all the time and I have now found a memory hook that makes my Dolmengötter-life easier. Here is the image that says it all...

Sort the dolmens as shown in the image. One row for each number, starting with 1 at the top. Remember to remove dolmens in the shape of an "U" starting in the top right corner. For 3 players remove 3 dolmens (red). Remove 4 dolmens for 4 players (orange). Remove the rest of the "U" to play with 5 players (brown).

To determine the number of stones each player may use, count the number of dolmens and add 3 stones to it (yellow).
Remember: Number of stones = number of dolmens +3

Posted by Naturelich at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am using FeedDemon to read some of the board game blogs out there. Currently I am being fed by 50 blogs. Maybe you find the OPML-file interesting which you can import into your RSS reader. A zipped version is available by clicking on this link and I will also add the file to the blogroll section. Note, the blogroll section is not in line with the OPML file which is larger. If you are interested in the hobby you'll get more than one excellent read every day by following those blogs.

Posted by Naturelich at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The number of good boardgame blogs increases continuously. I recently found a few new interesting sites which are worth visiting (I have added a permanent link on the blogroll on the main index page).

My first candidate for a regular read is:
Mike Doyle's Art Play - Thoughts on boardgames and game aesthetics
Mike is a graphics designer and lives in the United States, in New Jersey. His blog not only focuses on board games but also on the artwork included in these games. His work on the Settlers of Catan boardgame is totally astonishing.

• Settlers of Catan Board Design Part 1


• Settlers of Catan Board Design Part 2


• Settlers of Catan Board Design Part 3


• Also, don't miss his exhaustive Settlers of Catan Review


• In addition, check out the Shadows over Camelot (Visual Design Review) and his introductory post.

The second new addition to my blogroll is Matthew Marquand's
Marquand.net
The blog has a nice design and features some cool pictures of session reports. It is certainly not a boardgame-exclusive but the game night category contains all gaming related information. Matthew apparently likes playing Memoir '44 as there's several session reports on that game, too.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The nominations for the Board Game Internet Awards are finalized.

Naturelich Games is nominated in category Best Game Blog.

Thanks for nominating this site.

The authors of Gone Gaming have announced to publish the results around January 28th. To all nominees: Viel Glück aus Düsseldorf!!

Posted by Naturelich at 11:48 PM | Permalink

One of the problems of Louis XIV. is the lack of a decent board. The cards are a little bit difficult to handle. Apparently this problem makes fans creative:

BGG user Bryant Ross has created a custom-made board for Louis XIV. and uploaded some images to BGG.

Check this link to view the full board and this link to zoom in a little bit.

Maybe there's a chance to "mass"-produce this or order a few copies?

Posted by Naturelich at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

This has been around for a while, but it never hurts to reinforce the message: Go, and name your favorite gaming sites on the Gone Gaming blog. They are currently taking nominations for their Gone Gaming: Board Game Internet Awards. After receiving the nominations, the writers of Gone Gaming blog will review the nominated sites and vote on them. The votes will be collated and ranked. Winners will be posted on Gone Gaming.

The award categories include:
Best publisher site
Best game news site
Best game information site
Best game community site
Best game club site
Best online journal/magazine
Best online gaming site
Best new site (2005)

Best strategy article (2005)
Best promotional/advocacy article (2005)
Best humorous article (2005)
Best article series (2005)
Best session report (2005)

Best blog
Best blog post (2005)
Best podcast/videocast
Best podcast/videocast episode (2005)
Best new blog/podcast/videocast (2005)

Cast your nominations here (before nominations close at midnight (EST) at the end of Saturday, Jan 14).

Kinda fun, don't you think?

Posted by Naturelich at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These days it seems to be the right time to look back at 2005. I would like to share my observations on the industry and the direction in which boardgames where headed. I am going to look at

• Main 2005 boardgame themes and the effects of a more and more global boardgame industry on themes,


• Specific trends like Sudoku,


• The effect of bread-and-butter expansions to popular games,


• The evolvement of the boardgame online-community, and


• The "Caylus-effect"

This should allow us to get some indications as to where Brettspielers are going in 2006.

Themes, Part 1: Fantasy
Let's hypothesize that the boardgame industry follows major trends in pop culture. Movies have the power to form mainstream themes. The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter have greatly re-viatlized the fantasy genre. Science fiction is totally out. Star Trek is gone from TV. Except Star Wars III, what was the last science fiction movie you saw? Mabye I, Robot? But did you watch Harry Potter IV? What about Narnia? I think this is still one of the major ongoing trends in pop culture.

Has this trend been reflected in boardgames? The hype around The Lord of the Rings has produced several games with strongly related themes. These games coincided with the movie release(s) and we cannot really include them into a 2005 retrospective (except maybe Spielbox' Gollum - Expansion for War of the Ring). But there are certainly plenty of post-The Lord of the Rings boardgames with a fantasy theme. Kosmos and Amigo, both among the biggest German boardgame publishers, bestowed us with fantasy titles: Beowulf - The Legend and Dragonriders (Drachenreiter). Smaller publishers like Scribabs (from Italy) have also made a contribution with Tempus Draconis.
For 2006, I presume the fantasy theme might diminish a little bit leaving room for pirates and ever-popular medieval themes. Due to the FIFA Worldcup we will probably see more soccer-themed games, too. But Fantasy has not been the biggest theme in 2005...

Continue reading "Boardgame retrospective 2005" »

Posted by Naturelich at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

While I am still trying to catch up with all the boardgaming around Christmas, I wish you a

Happy New Year 2006

Posted by Naturelich at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The holiday season is getting closer. I am looking forward to many many new and (hopefully) interesting boardgames. Some of them are waiting to be played for a few months now, but since things are really really busy right now, there is not much I can do about it. Of course anticipation levels are rising and I have to admit to have studied some of the rulebooks (yes, yes, yes, it has come THAT far...).
Here is what the holiday season will be up against...

Caylus, Euphrat & Tigris - Wettstreit der Könige, Carcassonne - Neues Land, Antike, Timbuktu, Aqua Romana, Die Dolmengötter, several fan-produced Ticket to Ride maps and a rematch of Elasund - The First City of Catan (as recently requested by Shelak).

I have ordered Memoir '44 recently so maybe I should add this to the list. Anyone else looking forward to several boardgame sessions over the holidays (if any)?

Posted by Naturelich at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Inspired by Yehuda Berlinger, who recently posted As long as we're linking to encourage more links between boardgame blogs, here are some details about Naturelich. So far, I have tried to keep this site more or less anonymous and I don't actually intend to change that. However, there are some details related to my boardgame life I wanted to share...

Continue reading "About Naturelich as a gamer" »

Posted by Naturelich at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Naturelich Games is taking a new step forward. For the first time, I am very proud to have a guest contributor! Kokliko is the author of a new fan-produced map for Ticket to Ride - The Bretagne.

I got to know Kokliko through the French Ticket to Ride forum on the Days of Wonder website. We exchanged several emails and now he has written his first article to give us an update on the current stage of development. Thank you, Kokliko, for involving us into this process!

If you like, please leave your feedback here as a comment, or drop Kokliko an email.

But now, without further ado...

Kokliko with news about the map of Bretagne

Posted by Naturelich at 10:48 PM | 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)

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 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)

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)

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)

As reported by Spielbox online, the comic magazine Comixene (JNK Verlag), in it's issue 89, contains a coupon for Diamanten Joe, a new (small) extension to Niagara. Niagara, published by Zoch Verlag, won the prestiguous Spiel des Jahres 2005 award . According to Spielbox, this coupon will only be valid during the Internationale Spieltage in Essen 2005. The JNK Verlag is located in hall 8, booth 14.

Comixene will also contain several additional coupons for several comics as well as a promo from Fan Pro HeroClix.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We all know our favorite: BoardGameGeek. BGG contains a plethora of valuable information on almost any game. Recently, Alfred's Best of Blogosphere cited a link to a funny GeekList (a GeekList is list of games created by one or more BGG users), which several blogs caught up on (see the entry on Naturelich Games).
Greg Aleknevicus left an interesting comment on Mikko Saari's gameblog. Greg points out that some GeekLists may be valuable but get easily lost in a plethora of junk lists (such as Games I played last weekend, Games I bought at a thrift store, etc). The comments have continued to come in and I would like to add mine. I agree with Greg, Mikko and Iain - it will be difficult to limit the GeekList feature to strictly useful lists. In an open environment such as BGG, a certain degree of useless background noise will always exist. Feedback mechanisms (such as evaluating the list) might be helpful, but even if the GeekList is great for 90% of all readers it does not mean it's valuable for you.
Maybe we need a GeekList-Aggregator of some sort? BGG itself provides simple mechanisms such as the HOT-GeekList feature. But this list contains nothing of "real value". It's mostly fun stuff and includes some current topics (such as Essen 2005, or Finnish Player Picks 2005). It is not interesting if you are looking for a comparison of the game you want to buy vs. similar games from the same genre.

Perhaps this is were boadgame-blogs can kick in.

Continue reading "On the value of GeekLists" »

Posted by Naturelich at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (3)

ATOMROFL...

Intelligence Report on Subject #M33P135: The Meeples

via Musings, Ramblings, and Things Left Unsaid

Posted by Naturelich at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Over at Musings, Ramblings, and Things Left Unsaid, Alfred is publishing a weekly digest of the best in board gaming blogs: Alfred's Best of the Blogosphere.
I am happy for Naturelich Games to have made it to this week's list. Alfred found my postings about Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne variants interesting and also hints at a self-produced Carcassonne-redo which may or may not see the light of day. I definitely hope it does. I personally enjoy tinkering and playing fan-produced extensions as they add a personalized flavor to the games. So, let's keep our fingers crossed.
In addition, Alfred mentions plenty of other interesting blog-articles from the past week. It's great to have a good board game aggregation "feed" like this. Highly recommended...

Posted by Naturelich at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have continued to do some research on Sudoku (数独). Some basic info is available at Wikipedia, here. I am pretty sure, classic Sudoku does not qualify as a boardgame (in the German board game sense). However, huge game publisher have announced to show several games at the international game fair in Essen 2005. And these do qualify! They must have noticed that money can be earned in this area. So far, it is not clear to me, why I should get a Sudoku boardgame, if I can play it free on the internet. But let's have a look at what has been announced so far.

Continue reading "Sudoku board games" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (2)

Unfortunately, I will only be able to attend Essen 2005 on the very last day. I had to do this a couple of years ago. But since the exhibition booths all close down fairly early I am not too happy about this situation. Maybe I can take one day off from work (Friday?!) but that's yet to be seen. Chances don't look too good, though.

But despite this tragedy, I have come to prepare my want and play list for Essen 2005 new products.
Oh, before I start the list: does anyone have any idea why there is so much fuzz about Sudoku? Several game companies seem to offer their own variation. Maybe that's something to check out?! Any hints are appreciated!

Continue reading "Naturelich's game list for Essen 2005" »

Posted by Naturelich at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

On The Game Table blog, ekted recently posted an interesting article about Granularity in boardgames. ekted defines the term granularity as follows:

Granularity is the measurement of the size of scoring increments in a game. It can be constant from start to finish, or change as the game progresses. It is a concept that is not often discussed along with the usual theme/mechanics aspects when critiquing a game.

I have to agree on this issue. Granularity is not widely discussed during reviews and it may - or may not - be a part of frustration for a certain type of player. I hope to be able to avoid a discussion about semantics but I am not sure I can. (Let me see what I end up with). What bothers me is my own strong personal opinion about some of the classification that were made as part of ekted's article [Note: This will obviously create a long (!) blog entry but I shall try to provide a quick "management summary" at the bottom].

Basically, the discussion identified games with a fairly constant granularity (e.g. Carcassonne and St. Petersburg as examples) as compared to games with "uncontrolled granularity", "where many games fall apart".

I am not so sure whether it's fair to name Ticket to Ride in this latter category. It may just be "a popular pretend-train-game" but I don't think the granularity (or "size of scoring increments") is uncontrolled. Let me try to explain why.

Continue reading "On granularity in Ticket to Ride" »

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

Several (half-official) Louis XIV. variants have been posted on the alea website. This includes suggested two-player rules as well as modified scoring rules for the crests. Although I have my doubts with regard to the usefulness of these rules, I have tried to translate them into (D)English. In case of questions or corrections, please do not hesitate to leave a comment.

Continue reading "Louis XIV. variants" »

Posted by Naturelich at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Louis XIV. wins the prestigious award Deutsche Spielepreis 2005. This award allows players, boardgame groups, journalists and retailers to vote on their favorite game. Louis XIV. got 2669 votes. Second prize winner Niagara, at the same time Spiel des Jahres 2005, only got 1685 votes, followed closely by Manila (1506) and Ubongo (1286).

This result is in line with my strong opinion about Louis XIV. being a great game. Congratulations to the winner.

The prize for best children's game Deutscher Kinderspielepreis 2005 goes to Akaba while the prize for best rulebook goes to Piranha Pedro.

Posted by Naturelich at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Essen 2005 is not far away. The German boardgame magazine Spielbox will feature a new scenario for The Settlers of Catan in their Essen 2005 edition (05/2005). This extension is called Die Fischer von Catan (engl. The Fishermen of Catan) and was developed by Klaus Teuber exclusively for Spielbox. Earlier this year, the game magazine had announced in their editorial to publish more and more small extensions to popular games. This initiative was caused by dropping magazine subscriptions. I find this a very attractive offering and have already subscribed to the magazine (and encourage you to do the same). In this series, the magazine has made the following extensions available to the general public:

• Carcassonne: The Cathars


• Ticket to Ride: Mystery Train


• Sir Bediverefor Shadows over Camelot


• Gollum. A small figure for playing War of the Ring

Posted by Naturelich at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As of now all the boardgame-related content from www.naturelich.com is now available in this separated weblog Naturelich Games. Due to the upgrade to the latest 3.2 version of MovableType I decided to re-arrange things a little bit. Until recently www.naturelich.com featured about 375 blog entries. The majority of those dealt with Naturelich's boardgame-life. Those 90 articles have now been moved to Naturelich Games where I will continue to write about one of my biggest hobbies. I hope this new focus makes it easier for you to follow this part of me. If you are interested in the personal stuff (Hi, Mom!) you are cordially invited to visit Naturelich main.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I came across a funny article which describes a nice what-if scenario:

What if World War II was a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)?

(via &games)

Posted by Naturelich at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This entry is actually not a game session report. It is more like the announcement of one. During our upcoming holiday we will have one (or more) reolplaying sessions. I have agreed to host an adventure of Das Schwarze Auge. I have bought an adventure book and it arrived today. I am all excited and looking 4ward to this. My last RPG session is already a couple of years back (except just one exception maybe a year or two ago) so I'll have to dive into the new rules as well. Let's see how this works out.

Posted by Naturelich at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Germany's Spiel des Jahres 2005 award goes to:

Niagara.

Niagara is designed by Thomas Liesching and published by Zoch Verlag. This small publisher already won the 2002 Spiel des Jahres award for Villa Paletti. According to Managing Director Albrecht Werstein the new production run will start immediately. New orders can be satisfied by August 15th. Niagara should be available throughout Germany by mid-September.

Thomas Liesching said that he is full of joy to have found soulmates with Zoch Verlag. According to the Spiel des Jahres website, he was totally stunned and speechless.

Well-known Kosmos Verlag is awarded Kinderspiel des Jahres 2005 prize for

Das kleine Gespenst (The little ghost)

by Kai Haferkamp. Kai Haferkamp originates from Osnabrück (Naturelich's home town) and has based his game on Ottfried Preussler's book (by the same title).

Congratulations to both winners!

Posted by Naturelich at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Days of Wonder has published news about the German Ticket to Ride championship tournament series. Days of Wonder is looking for the first German champion of Zug um Zug (the German title of Ticket to Ride). The first of 50 qualifying tournaments are hosted in May in Schweinfurt, Kassel and Limburg-Eschhofen. Cologne, Gaggenau and Übach-Palenberg will follow in June -- many other locations follow until November 2005. Click here to see the current list of tournaments. These events are naturelich not to be missed!

Naturelich's suggestion for the grand-prize (next to fame and glory): a one-on-one game against Alan R. Moon. :D

If you want to go to Cologne, please leave a comment here and we can play some online-games. After that, I can decide whether I still want to go there or not. :D

The official tournament rules are available here.

[Update April 18th: Click here to view the official entry in the forum.]

Posted by Naturelich at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The April issue of The Games Journal contains an interview with Days of Wonder's Erich Hautemont. Click here to read more.

In addition this months issue also contains articles about

This month's puzzle requires you to match components from the same game. While Mikko Saari got nine without using BoardGameGeek, I was not so very successful. I am looking forward to seeing the solution next month... ;-)

Posted by Naturelich at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My first real Mah-Jongg game has arrived. I am a great fan of Mah-Jongg solitaire which is a very popular PC game. Currently, I am playing Kyodai Mahjongg a lot. The popular PC game is a one-player solitaire variant played with the Mah-Jongg tile set. Playing is so much more fun with real tiles. Feels very good to physically touch and remove the tiles.
The Mah-Jongg game comes in a rosewood box with metal fittings and an engravement on the top: the Chinese symbols Zhen Chang (treasure chest). The tileset itself contains figures from the Chinese epos Shui hu zhuan (Outlaws of the Marsh, a.k.a. Water Margin). There are 108 heroes of this Ilias-like odyssey representing outlaws, intelligence, anarchy, philosophers, etc. The epic describes many individual and collective adventures dealing with an uprising of outlaws (lead by Song Jiang) against the Chinese Emperor and his corrupt government. More details on the epic Water Margin can be found here.

I have taken some pictures to give you an impression of my tileset.

The next project: playing the real Mah-Jongg game with four players. I have ordered the official German rules and hope to learn it soon...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

A very interesting site, with detailed gaming reports can be found on Coljenns Game Journal. I especially liked the entries around the Belgian expansion to Ticket to Ride with some interesting strategy hints. Coljenn has also added a few new destination tickets.

Here is a list of related blog entries:

Posted by Naturelich at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NationStates.net is a free nation simulation game. One can build their own nation and run it to one's own political preference: from Dictatorship, Democracy, Holy Empire to People's Republic - everything is possible. The idea is based on the novel Jennifer Government by Max Barry. So, whatever you think about politics - here is your chance to do it better than your local government officials...

Posted by Naturelich at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)