Power Grid - Game Report

Okay, remind me never to try new strategies when playing a game...

Julie and I decided to pull out Power Grid tonight. Just in case you don't
know, the two player variant (or rules if you will) is fantastic. It is one
of the best games out there for two or more players. Playing on the US side,
I realized Julie was headed to a few cities I had my eye on. So I gambled
and decided not to power for a round and instead build into three cities.
This was a huge mistake. First, I failed to generate any real income for
three turns. But I was in "the lead" so I couldn't buy my resources cheap
enough to help out. All this led to a glorious win for Julie and a
humiliating defeat for me.

Oh well, I do have a winning strategy. And I will beat her ... next time!

Carcasonne - Game Report

I picked up the latest expansion for Carcasonne yesterday (The Princess &
the Dragon) and pulled it out to play with Julie (my wife for those of you
who don't know) last night. So after dinner (Chinese, yum!), we pulled out
the old favorite Carcasonne.

Unfortunately, we realized that we hadn't played the expansion prior to
that - The Count. So, to ease the confusion, we decided to take it one
expansion at a time. After a brief read of the rules, we sat down and
started playing. While we both enjoy Carcasonne, we both concluded that the
time has come to stop playing with every expansion each time we play.

For those of you who don't know, Carcasonne is a tile laying game where
players earn points by claiming and completing cities, roads, and cloisters.
When you add other expansions, points are multiplied by playing certain
tiles. Additional points are earned by collecting commodities as well.
Sound confusing? It is a little bit but that confusion is from the multiple
expansions and the new rules that accompany each new expansion.

I love original Carcasonne and find it a great game for those who haven't
ventured off the beaten path of Monopoly and Sorry. The Count is a great
concept in and of itself, and I think we would have enjoyed the game more if
we hadn't tried with all the expansions published to that point.

The Count rules are quite simple, actually. When a player finishes
something that they don't score points for, they may place a follower
(meeple) in the city of Carcasonne. Later in the game, when something is
scored, they may, at their choice, move any number of their followers to the
item being scored. It works well to take majority of a high scoring item
away from someone, adding a bit more of a "stick it to your neighbor" factor
to the game.

On the surface, I liked the Count expansion. And I'm sure I'll like The
Princess and the Dragon as well. But I think I might start playing
Carcasonne with only a couple of the expansions to make the game play faster
and less cumbersome. As with all things, too much of a good thing is still
too much.

Get Hooked

I remember moving to Minnesota nearly two years ago excited at the prospect
of 10,000 lakes to practice my craft of drowning worms. Drowning worms, you
ask? Well, most folks call it fishing, but since I never catch anything but
a cold, I can hardly call it that. However, a Twin Cities game designer has
developed a fantastic game that ensures that a day at the lake involves
catch fish that I will catch only in my dreams.

“Get Hooked”, developed by Dan Shaw, tells us “It’s a Keeper!” I do not
always agree with the advertising story on the game box, but in this case,
it is appropriate. Seldom does such a heavily themed game grab my
attention, but I am indeed hooked by this clever and well-designed effort.

The game consists of boats for three players or teams, lure markers for six
players, a board that shows a lake and different types of fishing locations
(reeds, dam, river mouth, etc.) and a deck of 100 cards that represent both
the fish you will catch and the tricks that will allow you to get ahead in
the game. The quality of the components is standard except for the box.
The game comes in a nice metal lunch style box that grabs your eye and adds
to the overall appearance of the game.

The goal is simple: catch the biggest and most fish. The game continues
until a player either catches 30 points worth of fish or three trophy fish.
Since the game values trophy fish higher than your average bullhead, it
makes sense to try to catch as many of those fish as possible. While it is
possible to win by catching bullheads, the likelihood of this method is
highly unlikely, just as no serious tournament angler would win with this
type of catch.

Game play is equally simple. Each turn consists of three phases beginning
with the draw phase. After the player draws a card from the deck, he or she
may play an action card to give them special benefits during the turn,
hinder an opponent on their turn, or allow fish to magically appear on their
line. Finally, the fishing phase allows a player to do one of three things:
move their boat, change their lure, or catch a fish by playing a card.
Since each fish card indicates the part of the lake that the fish lives in
along with the type of lure the fish will bite on, it is crucial to try and
catch as many fish with the same lure at the same part of the lake as
possible.

Despite the strong theme of the game, players should not dismiss this game
simply because of this. Game play itself is strategic with a strong streak
of luck and has a lot to offer both the casual player and game hobbyist
alike. While the theme is certainly fun and adds a great deal to the game,
it does not interfere with a solid design and the actual play of the game.

In those dreary days of winter that you find yourself longing to get the
Lund out on the lake and try and land that elusive trophy bass, “Get Hooked”
allows you to dream of warmer days ahead. With solid game play, a fun
theme, and quality components, fishing fans and game players alike will find
“Get Hooked” a tremendous catch and not one to overlook.

Blokus

Over 2,500 years ago, someone in China developed Go. 250 years ago, William
Payne wrote Treatise on the Game of Draughts and brought Checkers into the
modern era from it's humble beginnings in ancient Egypt. Backgammon, the
king of all racing games, dates back some 5,000 years. Chess is over 1400
years old after someone invented the game in India in 600 A.D.

So what's up with the history lesson? Every so often a game comes along
that is destined to survive well into the future. As our examples from
antiquity demonstrate, these timeless games all share common ingredients:
basic pieces, simple goals and game play, and ease of learning with mastery
a challenge. In 2001, another simple yet challenging game came onto the
scene and it is destined to be played well into the future: Blokus.

Blokus is a simple game of territory control similar to Go or Pente. The
difference is that rather than small stones to mark your territory, you use
various shaped colored pieces of plastic. Each of these piece resemble the
falling blocks in the computer game Tetris. The object is to simply get
your 21 pieces on the board while blocking your opponents who are trying to
do the same thing. On each players turn, they place one of their pieces on
the game board.

The trick is that after the first piece is played in your corner of the
square game board, you may only play a piece if it touches another piece of
your color. To further challenge you, you can only play that piece so it
touches on the corner of the piece you've already played. Game play
continues until you either place all your pieces on the board or cannot play
a piece due to space constraints. Each piece has a point value and players
receive points based on what pieces are left. The player with the lowest
total wins.

The simplicity is what makes this game so appealing. The box says that kids
as young as five can play and based on staff experience, that holds true.
The very youngest might need a little direction, but those who can play
chess or checkers should find this game easy to play. But as a customer so
suciently put it, “The levels of strategy are so deep that it makes it an
incredible game to play over and over again.” Truly this is a game that
appeals to young and old alike because it is as complicated as you wish to
make it.

And while you may think that I'm just making this all up, you can look at
their multitude of awards including the coveted Spiel des Jahres award for
German game of the year along with a place on the Games Magazine top 100 of
2002 and 2003. Mensa, Dr. Toy, Family Fun and many others have all given
this great game their stamp of approval. This puts Blokus in some elite
company among contemporary games and solidifies it among the all time
greats.

Although the game is 100% plastic, it does not detract from the quality of
the game. The colorful molded plastic pieces are sturdy and will hold up to
heavy play. The board is solid plastic and sturdy enough to survive a
person leaning on the board with all their weight (don't ask). Storage is a
breeze with a divided plastic storage bin with areas for each color.
Assuming you put each color in it's place and don't do the shake and bake
with the box while putting away, you should have no problem simply opening
the box and playing the next game.

So why the history lesson again? As I said last year, in 100 years people
will still play chess, checkers, go, and backgammon. I can't say that in
100 years that people will play some of my other favorites from 2003. But I
think I can safely say that in 100 years people will still play Blokus.
With all the ingredients of a timeless classic, Blokus is poised to remain
playable and approachable many years to come.

Scene It

I'm not much of a movie buff, to be honest. I get a lot of strange looks
when folks ask me if I've seen the latest Hollywood blockbuster and I reply
that I haven't. With limited time for entertainment, I much prefer
activities that I have more participation in (like games) rather than more
passive forms like television and movies. Not that I think movies or
television are bad, mind you, it's just not my cup of tea.

Nor do I really care for trivia games. There is something about them that
reminds me too much of the part of school I didn't care for: the tests. I
found that games like Trivial Pursuit are less about skill and more about
regurgitating facts. I prefer my games to have a little more balance and
accessibility than most trivia games provide. Again, not that trivia games
are necessarily bad games, but as a general rule, I tend to shy away from
them.

So it probably doesn't come as much of a surprise that I resisted playing
Scene It for as long as I did. Take a subject I don't know much about
(movies) and combine it with a game style I don't care for (trivia) and
you've got a recipe for a game that I just won't like. Imagine my surprise
when I played my first game of Scene It this past Christmas and actually
found myself enjoying the game. The reason for enjoying it so much? Scene
It is unlike any trivia game you've ever played.

Scene It is a game of movie knowledge and observation. Questions come in
two forms: cards and DVD questions. The questions on the cards involve
standard trivial information. The latter part is what sets Scene It apart
from the hoards of other trivia games and makes it so movie buffs aren't the
only ones who will play and enjoy this game.

Questions on the DVD come in several varieties and there are multiple
questions for each clip shown. They range from basic identify the movie or
actor questions to memory questions like what color something was or the
last name of a character in the clip. With the memory questions, the answer
is always referenced in some form during the clip, so even if you have never
seen the movie, you still have a fighting chance at winning the question.
Obviously the designers had both the movie buff and the casual movie viewer
in mind when they developed their game.

Also, the DVD contains “All Play” questions that invite everyone to play.
Here the game might ask you to identify what's missing from a still from a
movie (shown with the item cut out of the movie) or what is different
between the two pictures shown. Also, they might ask you to identify a
character from a distorted picture or a movie from four progressively shown
clips. It is in these questions that the average movie fan is even with the
super movie buff and again show the game's appeal to all types of game
players.

To win the game, a player must make their way around the game board to the
final four spaces. At the first of these spaces is a spot called “All Play
to Win!” All players compete in a question and should the player in the
final spot win, they win the game. Otherwise, they advance to the “Final
Cut” spaces and play continues. When that player's next turn comes around,
they need to answer multiple questions in a row in order to win the game.
Clearly this is a fix to the problem of “runaway leader” and works well to
ensure that all players have a chance to stage a dramatic come from behind
victory.

Other nice features includes board itself folds in on itself creating a
shorter track for a shorter game and alternate rules for increasing or
decreasing movement along the board. These are nice features to allow play
with those who may not have a long attention span or for those who want one
more “quick” game before bed.

Aside from the DVD, the other components are of high quality, including
solid metal pieces, a sturdy game board, and a sizable amount of traditional
trivia question cards. One other nice feature of the board is that it folds
in on itself creating a shorter track for a shorter game. It's a nice
feature to allow play with those who may not have a long attention span or
for those who want one more “quick” game before bed.

Scene It's popularity is well noted and well deserved. As one of the
store's more popular games the past two holiday seasons , Scene It has
something to offer everyone. Like the best Hollywood Blockbuster, Scene It
has laughs, drama, tension, and a few explosions as players race around the
board and try to become the Scene It Champion. And like any good
blockbuster, it has already spawned one sequel and several sister games.
Just two things are missing from the blockbuster movie experience: sticky
floors and overpriced popcorn! I guess no game can include everything.

Welcome to the first post of my updated look for the website / blog. I think this should work easier in the long run for both updating and maintaining a consistent look to the site. You'll find all sorts of great reviews, reports, and general rants on gaming.

So sit back, pour a cup o' joe and enjoy the ride. I know I will.

Mahalo,

Thomas