Well I timed myself last night. To generate THIS REVIEW for Terra Prime, it took me about an hour. And really, that was pushing it. I think I would have liked about another 30 minutes to do more editing and touching up. In particular I would like to have put more in about my wife's views. And yes, I can still go back and edit it, but I'm not really in a big hurry for this one. Especially since it appears it will be only so-so popular in the long run.
An hour on a review is still pretty hefty work. I know the guys that do the video reviews have to spend longer, but still. I don't know if I'll ever reach that gold review microbadge in my gaming career. Most indicators point towards no. I can be proud of the ones I do put out though.
Things I have learned:
Negative reviews don't get thumbs. People want to be convinced to buy a game. If you bash on it, you will mostly just pull out the defenders and make an ugly flame war.
Pictures get you more thumbs than almost anything. EndersGame over on BGG does reviews almost made totally of pictures. They are very good reviews, but a lot of their appeal is the pictures.
Reviews of popular games are more popular. Duh. Especially those with few reviews. It's that whole supply and demand thingie.
I like my review criteria. I was thinking about adding something about playing time since that wasn't in there yet. I might just toss it under "frequency of decisions". I'll probably dedicate another post just to talking about the review criteria.
Anyway, is there something I'm missing to make a first class review?
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Terra Prime - Pros and Cons
Got in a second game of Terra Prime with the wife tonight. How'd it go? Let's break it down.
Pro#1 - Box open to box close was 60 minutes. That included setup and tear down. Very good news compared to our 120 minute first excursion.
Pro#2 - Scores were close. Nobody got totally blown away by the Aliens. We equally explored and delivered. I won by about 10 points.
Pro#3 - The game did feel different this time. For one, we never had a green colony. There was only 1 green planet in the hexes chosen, and it was on the red edge of a yellow tile. Means fulfilling demand tiles was a bitch and had to use rewards to pay for things.
Pro#4 - Made better use of the bribe method of getting rid of aliens. Less VP (By a lot. Since you don't get a reward and have to lose resources to do it.), but also a lot less actions.
And then the cons:
Con#1 - We both ended up doing more or less samey things. Explore some, deliver some. It didn't feel as diverse as the first time.
Con#2 - The turns were so staccato. I really don't like having some turns where it's just "move, pickup, move". Sitting at Terra Prime in the middle of your turn and trying to figure out how many actions you've taken is annoying as shit. This is code for the turns were not smooth.
Con#3 - My wife in particular got annoyed at being able to plan 3 turns in advance and then taking 5 minutes to play those out due to play time. She knew she wanted to drop off cubes on the way to TP and go colonize the one dang Green world. I was going a little slow on my turns and it was basically boring the crap out of her. I can only imagine that feeling would get worse with more players. There just wasn't a large number of important decisions per minute of playtime. The important decisions were at the macro level "grab a cloaking device with some cube space to bribe some aliens and settle distant colonies". But the decisions that dominated the playtime were the micro ones: "should I give up my last action so I can pick up this cube that will respawn or just go ahead and pick it up on my way back through".
So, in the end, I don't think Terra Prime is for us. I think our copy shall join the giant math trade going on over here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/49804/end-of-year-utility-math-trade
Pro#1 - Box open to box close was 60 minutes. That included setup and tear down. Very good news compared to our 120 minute first excursion.
Pro#2 - Scores were close. Nobody got totally blown away by the Aliens. We equally explored and delivered. I won by about 10 points.
Pro#3 - The game did feel different this time. For one, we never had a green colony. There was only 1 green planet in the hexes chosen, and it was on the red edge of a yellow tile. Means fulfilling demand tiles was a bitch and had to use rewards to pay for things.
Pro#4 - Made better use of the bribe method of getting rid of aliens. Less VP (By a lot. Since you don't get a reward and have to lose resources to do it.), but also a lot less actions.
And then the cons:
Con#1 - We both ended up doing more or less samey things. Explore some, deliver some. It didn't feel as diverse as the first time.
Con#2 - The turns were so staccato. I really don't like having some turns where it's just "move, pickup, move". Sitting at Terra Prime in the middle of your turn and trying to figure out how many actions you've taken is annoying as shit. This is code for the turns were not smooth.
Con#3 - My wife in particular got annoyed at being able to plan 3 turns in advance and then taking 5 minutes to play those out due to play time. She knew she wanted to drop off cubes on the way to TP and go colonize the one dang Green world. I was going a little slow on my turns and it was basically boring the crap out of her. I can only imagine that feeling would get worse with more players. There just wasn't a large number of important decisions per minute of playtime. The important decisions were at the macro level "grab a cloaking device with some cube space to bribe some aliens and settle distant colonies". But the decisions that dominated the playtime were the micro ones: "should I give up my last action so I can pick up this cube that will respawn or just go ahead and pick it up on my way back through".
So, in the end, I don't think Terra Prime is for us. I think our copy shall join the giant math trade going on over here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/49804/end-of-year-utility-math-trade
Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry X-Mas
Short post today. It's X-Mas after all :)
Got a play of Homesteaders in. You can read the session report here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/476561/first-session-wife-approves
Summary: Enjoyed it a lot. It will definitely see some more table time in the near future. Very little fiddle to the play actually.
My wife surprised me with a copy of Conquest of the Empire. Basically a game I'd always wanted to play and just could never bring myself to get. She even offered to play it with me today, which I might just take her up on :)
Have a jolly time everyone!
Got a play of Homesteaders in. You can read the session report here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/476561/first-session-wife-approves
Summary: Enjoyed it a lot. It will definitely see some more table time in the near future. Very little fiddle to the play actually.
My wife surprised me with a copy of Conquest of the Empire. Basically a game I'd always wanted to play and just could never bring myself to get. She even offered to play it with me today, which I might just take her up on :)
Have a jolly time everyone!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Terra Prime initial thoughts
So I actually got a chunk of new games right before X-mas. Bad me. Bad me. I ended up with Terra Prime, Homesteaders, and Chinatown. Thus far, I've only gotten Terra Prime to the table.
So, how was Terra Prime? Well, it went pretty good.
The best part was customizing your ship to fit how you want to play the game. Want to fight? Toss on guns. Want to be a shipper? Put in some cargo holds. Want to explore? Toss on some actions and some cloaking. This alone will probably get me to try the game again.
The playtime went really long for us on our first game. I have hope that it will come down to at least the 90 minute time range by our next try.
The graphics were very solid. The components were okay. I had to let them dry out and then replace the energy cubes. After that they didn't get in the way of playing the game.
Really, the only downside that really bugged me was the sheer number of bits. Of course, I pretty much will never own Agricola due to the number of bits, so take that with a grain of salt.
Next up will be Homesteaders. I've been working on a player aid over here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/475958/initial-building-player-aid
I hate trying to skim across the table to check out all the buildings. I couldn't handle it in Endeavor either.
So, how was Terra Prime? Well, it went pretty good.
The best part was customizing your ship to fit how you want to play the game. Want to fight? Toss on guns. Want to be a shipper? Put in some cargo holds. Want to explore? Toss on some actions and some cloaking. This alone will probably get me to try the game again.
The playtime went really long for us on our first game. I have hope that it will come down to at least the 90 minute time range by our next try.
The graphics were very solid. The components were okay. I had to let them dry out and then replace the energy cubes. After that they didn't get in the way of playing the game.
Really, the only downside that really bugged me was the sheer number of bits. Of course, I pretty much will never own Agricola due to the number of bits, so take that with a grain of salt.
Next up will be Homesteaders. I've been working on a player aid over here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/475958/initial-building-player-aid
I hate trying to skim across the table to check out all the buildings. I couldn't handle it in Endeavor either.
Monday, December 21, 2009
2 of 4 X-Mas Complete
That's right. I live the Christmas fun. The movie "Four Christmases" was not good. It was however poignant. I now exercise my rights as a grown individual to stretch the four parties over a week instead of 1-2 days.
This weekend we did my Mother and Father. There are plenty of siblings there. They like to game. What did we play?
Say Anything - Probably the star of the weekend. It played fast and gave out many "chuckles-per-minute". I do wish they'd included 2 distinct sets of questions. We spent a lot of time combing through the question cards for questions that would bridge generational gaps. (Many of my siblings simply do not have a "Favorite band of the 80s") I definitely think at least one of the families may be picking this one up.
Eat Poop You Cat (Paper Telephone) - Still works great with teenagers. It will get naughty, so you be the judge of when they're old enough. I always enjoy seeing my siblings' artwork.
Apples to Apples - I have totally burned out on this. My copy is sitting far away in the spare room away from my game cabinet and it will stay there. Really, it's an okay game, but 40+ plays later I can't take it anymore. However, I did find one nice thing I didn't notice before. With curious teenagers you get a real chance to explain some of the cards like "Challenger Explosion" and "Lenin's Tomb". It was actually a neat little teaching tool.
Dixit - I'll be damned if one of my brothers isn't the Dixit master. Every time he was the judge he always got *some* of us to pick his picture. I however, sucked ass. Cool game though, they enjoyed it.
Set - There is much truth in the saying that you can get better at this game. My wife and I have played a lot. We SMOKED my siblings. They eventually caught on in the second game, but we still wiped the floor with them.
Next up is trying out my new copies of Homesteaders and Terra Prime. I just need to nudge Alex Rockwell on what the unofficial 2-player variant for Homesteaders is :)
This weekend we did my Mother and Father. There are plenty of siblings there. They like to game. What did we play?
Say Anything - Probably the star of the weekend. It played fast and gave out many "chuckles-per-minute". I do wish they'd included 2 distinct sets of questions. We spent a lot of time combing through the question cards for questions that would bridge generational gaps. (Many of my siblings simply do not have a "Favorite band of the 80s") I definitely think at least one of the families may be picking this one up.
Eat Poop You Cat (Paper Telephone) - Still works great with teenagers. It will get naughty, so you be the judge of when they're old enough. I always enjoy seeing my siblings' artwork.
Apples to Apples - I have totally burned out on this. My copy is sitting far away in the spare room away from my game cabinet and it will stay there. Really, it's an okay game, but 40+ plays later I can't take it anymore. However, I did find one nice thing I didn't notice before. With curious teenagers you get a real chance to explain some of the cards like "Challenger Explosion" and "Lenin's Tomb". It was actually a neat little teaching tool.
Dixit - I'll be damned if one of my brothers isn't the Dixit master. Every time he was the judge he always got *some* of us to pick his picture. I however, sucked ass. Cool game though, they enjoyed it.
Set - There is much truth in the saying that you can get better at this game. My wife and I have played a lot. We SMOKED my siblings. They eventually caught on in the second game, but we still wiped the floor with them.
Next up is trying out my new copies of Homesteaders and Terra Prime. I just need to nudge Alex Rockwell on what the unofficial 2-player variant for Homesteaders is :)
Friday, December 18, 2009
Filler Super Fillers
There was lots of discussion about a year ago about "Super Fillers". Defined as "a game that fits inside 60 minutes with as meaty of experience as possible"
Well, last night we got some "Filler Super Fillers" which would be to me: "a game that fits inside 20 minutes with as meaty of experience as possible".
What did we play?
Ra: The Dice Game
Plays in 20 minutes tops with 2-plays. Also does it very well. I may still lean towards Roll Through the Ages, but I think there's plenty of room for both in my collection. I at least want to come back and keep playing it.
Last night I finally started to analyze my decisions on a "points / die" basis. You come up with some cool trade offs. I'm sure Knizia meant for all of that to happen.
For example, the first Civilization you get is 5 points for 3 dice. A 4th dice for a 2nd civilization is 0 points, but does enable you do get back to 5 for 3 or 10 for 4 the next time around. Of course, you also have to value taking up 2 slots on the civilization track to bump your opponent.
3 Suns is just 3 points, which really isn't super efficient.
The river is lotsa cool. Each river *could* be 3 points, but you also have to get it flooded with takes 3 dice for no points.
Anyway, it's a lot of fun little trade offs in the details.
Fairy Tale
Broke out the replacement copy my secret santa sent me. Super awesome!
We played our standard 2-player variant. Deal SEVEN cards per player. For the first 2 rounds of drafting, draft 1 card and trash 1 card from the hand. This gives the players more cards to peruse. Since in a 3+ player game you see far more unique cards than in a 2-player game.
How did I do? My wife schooled me. Of course, she played a "Hunt All Evil" thinking it flipper her evil cards. Actually, no, it left them alone but killed a critical "Unflip 2" card I had just played that turn. Doh!
This is just an excellent little card game. Sometimes I think I would like it to last a little longer, but then I just shrug and deal a new game.
Well, last night we got some "Filler Super Fillers" which would be to me: "a game that fits inside 20 minutes with as meaty of experience as possible".
What did we play?
Ra: The Dice Game
Plays in 20 minutes tops with 2-plays. Also does it very well. I may still lean towards Roll Through the Ages, but I think there's plenty of room for both in my collection. I at least want to come back and keep playing it.
Last night I finally started to analyze my decisions on a "points / die" basis. You come up with some cool trade offs. I'm sure Knizia meant for all of that to happen.
For example, the first Civilization you get is 5 points for 3 dice. A 4th dice for a 2nd civilization is 0 points, but does enable you do get back to 5 for 3 or 10 for 4 the next time around. Of course, you also have to value taking up 2 slots on the civilization track to bump your opponent.
3 Suns is just 3 points, which really isn't super efficient.
The river is lotsa cool. Each river *could* be 3 points, but you also have to get it flooded with takes 3 dice for no points.
Anyway, it's a lot of fun little trade offs in the details.
Fairy Tale
Broke out the replacement copy my secret santa sent me. Super awesome!
We played our standard 2-player variant. Deal SEVEN cards per player. For the first 2 rounds of drafting, draft 1 card and trash 1 card from the hand. This gives the players more cards to peruse. Since in a 3+ player game you see far more unique cards than in a 2-player game.
How did I do? My wife schooled me. Of course, she played a "Hunt All Evil" thinking it flipper her evil cards. Actually, no, it left them alone but killed a critical "Unflip 2" card I had just played that turn. Doh!
This is just an excellent little card game. Sometimes I think I would like it to last a little longer, but then I just shrug and deal a new game.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
2-Player Zendo Continued
I never really concluded my last post and Seth brought up some good ideas in the comments, so I thought I'd just keep rambling on the subject.
First of all, yes, the 3d6 was intended to be hidden from the student. The complete rules of the variant proposed by "Adam McD" were originally posted here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/58349/2-player-variant
And he had something similar to "if the student fails too much then both players lose".
I just don't like that rule though. I mean, when playing with my wife it would work just fine since we're both primarily focused on having a good time, not on winning.
Hrm, so the biggest issue is giving the student too much incentive to just give up and make stupid guesses. That means we should really weight him towards wanting to get done early. How about this:
If student gets it in:
#Koans < (Target - 2): Student gets 4 points
#Koans Within Target ± 2: master gets 1 point
#Koans = Target: Master 1 more point (2 total)
#Koans > (Target + 2): Student gets 1 point
That should really push the student to *want* to guess it quickly. I still worry that if the 3d6 was actually ~16 then the student would stop having a reason to try and just shoot for the bomb to get 1 point.
Or conversely, once you have the lead, why not just bomb every student and master. You can obviously bomb as a student, and you can make an insanely arcane rule to bomb as the master.
Hrm, or how about just say screw it. If a student bombs it, declare that round null and immediately play another round with the same roles. Of course, as soon as the student has made ~8 guesses they would probably just intentionally bomb instead of trying to answer.
Maybe the glitch should be determining who was doing the bombing. Was it the master or the student? I can't really lay the blame based on who is leading, because then the loser would have incentive to bomb it just as much as the leader.
The only other source of information is the balance of true and false Koans at the point of bombing. Is there reason to believe that a balance of true and false is indicative of an easier or harder rule? I think I may be on to something here. But which way? Is it easier to have a single case to compare against many? Or is it easier to have many cases to compare against many cases? I'll have to research this some and revisit it friday.
(I asked about rule easy/hard and balanced true/false over on bgg here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/4357597
)
First of all, yes, the 3d6 was intended to be hidden from the student. The complete rules of the variant proposed by "Adam McD" were originally posted here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/58349/2-player-variant
And he had something similar to "if the student fails too much then both players lose".
I just don't like that rule though. I mean, when playing with my wife it would work just fine since we're both primarily focused on having a good time, not on winning.
Hrm, so the biggest issue is giving the student too much incentive to just give up and make stupid guesses. That means we should really weight him towards wanting to get done early. How about this:
If student gets it in:
#Koans < (Target - 2): Student gets 4 points
#Koans Within Target ± 2: master gets 1 point
#Koans = Target: Master 1 more point (2 total)
#Koans > (Target + 2): Student gets 1 point
That should really push the student to *want* to guess it quickly. I still worry that if the 3d6 was actually ~16 then the student would stop having a reason to try and just shoot for the bomb to get 1 point.
Or conversely, once you have the lead, why not just bomb every student and master. You can obviously bomb as a student, and you can make an insanely arcane rule to bomb as the master.
Hrm, or how about just say screw it. If a student bombs it, declare that round null and immediately play another round with the same roles. Of course, as soon as the student has made ~8 guesses they would probably just intentionally bomb instead of trying to answer.
Maybe the glitch should be determining who was doing the bombing. Was it the master or the student? I can't really lay the blame based on who is leading, because then the loser would have incentive to bomb it just as much as the leader.
The only other source of information is the balance of true and false Koans at the point of bombing. Is there reason to believe that a balance of true and false is indicative of an easier or harder rule? I think I may be on to something here. But which way? Is it easier to have a single case to compare against many? Or is it easier to have many cases to compare against many cases? I'll have to research this some and revisit it friday.
(I asked about rule easy/hard and balanced true/false over on bgg here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/4357597
)
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