Is it really true that the subject matter in a game can make a difference? Can your enjoyment of a game increase just because a game is based upon something you really like? I guess there is plenty of evidence to suggest it can. How many of us have played a Star Wars game, just because its Star Wars? Would the game have been any worse just because Hans Solo isn’t on your side? Even though I always like to dismiss theme whilst buying games, I also sometimes must buy a game just because I like a particular theme.
In this case, the license was the Ken Follett Novels ‘Pillars of the Earth’ and ‘World without End’. Now I loved the first book and equally through some miracle of miracles ‘Pillars of the Earth’ is one of my favourite games. I like to think it because I enjoy the playing game, and surely the theme, disguised as a worker placement it could have been anything? Guess I’ll never know.
So it was without hesitation that I purchased ‘World without End’, regardless of the buzz, the follow up to the newest released 10 on my list.
Could the world of games be like movies, the second movie is usually never as good, just a rehash of everything that made the first one so great? In this case, I really don’t think so.
The graphics are similar – and why change them, the first one looks stunning. It’s still got wood and stone, but wait, no more worker placement. I have not yet suffered the same saturation as others have with worker placement games, I enjoy most that have came out – oddly enough keeping away from Stone Age, no idea why...
The game is all about getting the most victory points and it’s here the game starts to separate itself from the myriad of other games. There are many different ways to get victory points and none of them jump out as an obvious strategy. There are many bad events in the game and because you only play with half the event cards, you are never quite sure what you are going to get hit with next. For example, you could be saving up lots of wool, changing it to cloth, then bang, an event comes out that stops you selling cloth for the rest of the chapter.
I should explain, the game is set over four chapters, essentially 6 rounds per chapter. During each round you all each have the same 12 cards to choose from. You will, however only play 6 of these cards per chapter. Each time you lay a card you must lay another face down which you will not be able to play until the next chapter. Many times players curse when discarding one of their cards, only to want to play it a few rounds later. Very funny indeed.
As well as messing up any plans you had, the chapter card you draw also requires you to give each play an item, anything from wood, stone, piety to victory points. Decided by how you lay the card on the board. Although it also doubles up to move a counter round another track either 0,1,2 or 3 spaces which will give you an additional benefit. Therefore you sometimes find yourself giving players items you don’t really want to.
By the end of the chapter you are left agonising over whether or not you have collected the required 2 x Piety, 2 x Grain and Money (tax) you pay between 2 – 5 depending on dice roll. Despite other games offering similar end of round penalties I found this one different. Again, without any of us being masters of the game, we found it a good enough strategy to get short on some of the items just so you could do other things during the limited 6 rounds per chapter. If you focus on only collecting the end of chapter items, I suspect you could lose more often than win. Whereas in other games, if you don’t have the required items, it can lead to game over. Even the random roll of the dice was funny since in our last game we only rolled 4s or 5s leading to much joyful moaning from everyone.
After chapter 2 a new focus comes onto the board with the plague, it gives you something else to do during your rounds, like you had enough in the first place. Now you get to use medical knowledge you may have already gathered, with more victory points and bonus items for curing the plague. At least until the event card comes up that cures the plague and bang goes your strategy for collecting lots of medical knowledge.
All the games we have played were extremely tight and made for an enjoyable challenge. Trying to balance everything, never knowing what is round the corner, and slapping your head when you fail, in a good way.
It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and is played very quickly, the rounds are over before you know it and the four chapters fly by. The variety is great, since some games we have played very few buildings have came out and others when they come out its really makes you change your strategy.
So there you are. A follow up to one of my favourite games, and did I enjoy it because it was Pillars of the Earth or because it was related to the book.? I would say I enjoy it because of the fun we had during the game. I didn’t enjoy the second book as much as the first, for me it was just a rehash of the first book, thankfully this game isn’t. My group enjoys this game more Pillars. I’ll need a few more games before I mark another 10 in my book. Don't want people to think I've joined the cult of the new.
Can’t wait for the next games from Mr Rieneck and Mr Stadler.
Refreshingly Recommended.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Refreshing Dungeon Lords Review from The Bar
I keep promising to my games group that I will stop buying more games, at least until Christmas time. Of course, every time a games gets a good review I want it. Games now seem to be getting released more frequently than ever. And we love it. There are hardly any games coming out that we don’t enjoy, just don’t mention Magic...
One game I purchased based on ‘the buzz’ was Dungeon Lords. I don’t care much for theme, I accept that all games need one, but I wouldn’t buy a game just because it’s based on farming, paintings, shipping or anything else. It’s a game, and I want them all.
So whilst visiting a games shop, away from home, it seemed rude to come back with nothing. So, despite it being more than I would usually pay, I coughed up for Dungeon Lords. In fact, I lie when I say themes don’t matter. From past experience I keep away from ‘Funny games’. I don’t know what it is, I just never find them funny. It’s probably me, but I often dislike well known comedy shows on tv and everyone else finds them hilarious, but I don’t. Oh and I don’t particularly care for Dungeons and Dragons, I blame that for some of the bad press ‘our’ games get –we don’t paint and play paint with figures, nor do you have to dress up! The cover didn’t bode well, I knew from reading reviews that it wasn’t a funny game, but the childish cover and supposedly hilarious rules would normally keep me away. However, sticking to my mantra, a good game is a good game I took it back with me.
The rules, though longwinded, and annoying full of ‘funny’ remarks – no I didn’t find them funny, they just got in the way – were really straight forward. Just lots to remember. When you’ve got lots to remember you’ve got lots to tell people when trying to explain it.
To Summarise: Players build up a dungeon of corridors and rooms. Hire Monsters, buy traps to kill invading adventurers over four rounds. Keep your gold and food up and don’t get too bad, unless you are hard enough. Repeat twice.
I jumped into the first couple of games and never got past the first year. It felt enough with just one year, did we really want to do it all again? I never like to take too long to explain rules and this is one where explaining how the battles work is critical to how to play the game.
Most of the group had no clue why they were doing what they were doing, and when it came to the battles I found I was leading them through what they could and couldn’t do. We play hundreds of games, but somehow, this one wasn’t clicking with them. Maybe it’s because killing the adventurers is like a mini puzzle. And with puzzles if you don’t have the right pieces, or some are missing, or you don’t have the full picture, then there isn’t much you can do.
When we did get around to playing the second year it seemed a bit quicker to play through and those harder adventurers weren’t as hard as we’d first imagined, now that we’d built up some previous traps and monsters.
An odd thing about this game is no one seemed to focus or care about how the victory points worked. It was more important to just go with the flow of the game. I can’t remember explaining a game where I didn’t go over the victory points, usually first, and no one seemed to notice. It really didn’t matter. Just see if you can beat as many adventurers as you can and try to enjoy the process of it. Seems odd, but that’s how it worked.
As I always say we enjoy playing the games, not becoming masters of any. However, in a few cases a person who has no idea what they were doing turns out to win, is this a bad sign?
So what did I get for all that money, a nice looking game, great components, but not sold on the replay value. How often can we get excited about killing the same bunch of adventurers with the same traps and monsters. My group didn’t rate it and I think I will have a hard time getting it to the table again, a bit of a shame. However, my Son and I enjoy it more, I think my Son likes the idea of gathering the monsters then killing adventures, so the theme must matter more to his age group.
Not convinced. Possibly a little like his last game – Galaxy Trucker – enjoy playing it, have fun, but how often will the novelty go on?
And, no, I won’t buy the equally expensive expansion set. Well, not until Christmas at least.
One game I purchased based on ‘the buzz’ was Dungeon Lords. I don’t care much for theme, I accept that all games need one, but I wouldn’t buy a game just because it’s based on farming, paintings, shipping or anything else. It’s a game, and I want them all.
So whilst visiting a games shop, away from home, it seemed rude to come back with nothing. So, despite it being more than I would usually pay, I coughed up for Dungeon Lords. In fact, I lie when I say themes don’t matter. From past experience I keep away from ‘Funny games’. I don’t know what it is, I just never find them funny. It’s probably me, but I often dislike well known comedy shows on tv and everyone else finds them hilarious, but I don’t. Oh and I don’t particularly care for Dungeons and Dragons, I blame that for some of the bad press ‘our’ games get –we don’t paint and play paint with figures, nor do you have to dress up! The cover didn’t bode well, I knew from reading reviews that it wasn’t a funny game, but the childish cover and supposedly hilarious rules would normally keep me away. However, sticking to my mantra, a good game is a good game I took it back with me.
The rules, though longwinded, and annoying full of ‘funny’ remarks – no I didn’t find them funny, they just got in the way – were really straight forward. Just lots to remember. When you’ve got lots to remember you’ve got lots to tell people when trying to explain it.
To Summarise: Players build up a dungeon of corridors and rooms. Hire Monsters, buy traps to kill invading adventurers over four rounds. Keep your gold and food up and don’t get too bad, unless you are hard enough. Repeat twice.
I jumped into the first couple of games and never got past the first year. It felt enough with just one year, did we really want to do it all again? I never like to take too long to explain rules and this is one where explaining how the battles work is critical to how to play the game.
Most of the group had no clue why they were doing what they were doing, and when it came to the battles I found I was leading them through what they could and couldn’t do. We play hundreds of games, but somehow, this one wasn’t clicking with them. Maybe it’s because killing the adventurers is like a mini puzzle. And with puzzles if you don’t have the right pieces, or some are missing, or you don’t have the full picture, then there isn’t much you can do.
When we did get around to playing the second year it seemed a bit quicker to play through and those harder adventurers weren’t as hard as we’d first imagined, now that we’d built up some previous traps and monsters.
An odd thing about this game is no one seemed to focus or care about how the victory points worked. It was more important to just go with the flow of the game. I can’t remember explaining a game where I didn’t go over the victory points, usually first, and no one seemed to notice. It really didn’t matter. Just see if you can beat as many adventurers as you can and try to enjoy the process of it. Seems odd, but that’s how it worked.
As I always say we enjoy playing the games, not becoming masters of any. However, in a few cases a person who has no idea what they were doing turns out to win, is this a bad sign?
So what did I get for all that money, a nice looking game, great components, but not sold on the replay value. How often can we get excited about killing the same bunch of adventurers with the same traps and monsters. My group didn’t rate it and I think I will have a hard time getting it to the table again, a bit of a shame. However, my Son and I enjoy it more, I think my Son likes the idea of gathering the monsters then killing adventures, so the theme must matter more to his age group.
Not convinced. Possibly a little like his last game – Galaxy Trucker – enjoy playing it, have fun, but how often will the novelty go on?
And, no, I won’t buy the equally expensive expansion set. Well, not until Christmas at least.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Refreshing Macao Review from The Bar
There is nothing more enjoyable than whilst playing a game you chuckle away to yourself thinking how much fun the game is. Doesn’t happen during every game, although I do enjoy most games we play, but last games night during Macao I was thinking exactly that. It was fun. Seems odd for a game which could be considered pretty dry, lots of cubes, tokens, cards and even 6 colour dice.
After a few turns the aim of the game becomes clear, but any setup which asks you to choose from 6 cards, with no idea of how any of them work, does make the first game a bit of a test – “why did I take this card, its rubbish” – to only go and repeat the same crap choice again next time, despite thinking you wouldn’t.
What I loved about the 2nd play of this was that there are so many cards, and a completely different set of them came up from last time. Despite all the different cards, which can be overwhelming in games like Agricola, all the cards were clear and self explanatory the benefits obvious and allowed you to build up a set of cards which you think may help you in the future – if you can get them activated. Lots of other games, I’m looking at you Race for the Galaxy and Agricola, you struggle unless you are a seasoned player and have knowledge of how the cards work together, and we tend not to become serious about any game we play – even Ticket To Ride after numerous plays we have no idea of the different routes, never studied them, don’t want to, enjoy the game as it is.
The board is well laid out, with four different sections, all of which you need to decide how you will allocated your, sometimes, very limited turns. The number of turns you can have are decided upon a clever dice system which allows you to only collect the number rolled on the 6 dice in later rounds. If the blue dice is a 1, you can place a 1 blue cube in the next round. If the red dice shows a 2, you get 2 red cubes in two rounds time, etc...allowing you to build up a favourable number of cubes as the rounds go on. What we also liked was that any of the players could use any two of the dice, so if you want the 2 red dice you take two cubes, so could your opponents. And there are only 12 rounds, and the game just flies past.
Cubes are used for almost everything you want to do. We were initially concerned that the luck of the dice rolls could hamper the game. However, the more we play it the more we realise that you’ve got to adapt to what is there, or plan much further ahead. It didn’t really matter if you messed up, you get -3 points and move on. It was still fun.
Each card you initially select is kept on a separate board, you don’t get to use them immediately each one has a cost, in cubes, which needs to be paid. The most frustrating part is you cannot keep cubes left over from round to round, so you need to ensure you have all the cubes you need to activate a card all in the same round. There are also only 6 spaces on your board, and if you haven’t activated cards in time your board fills up and you get -3 penalty points. The above all sounds more complicated than it actually is.
Whilst playing rounds go very quickly. Turn over cards, each choose one, roll the dice, pick your cubes, play your cards, move the ship, move up the wall, take village tokens. We found ourselves playing some of the less critical turns simultaneously which kept the speed going and stopped the game dragging on.
The wall is a neat take on game turn. You can use a cube to move along the wall, or three cubes to move 2 spaces, etc. Keeping just slightly ahead of your opponents means you will get to go first and pick that vital card at the start.
I would really like to understand why I enjoyed this game so much. It’s nothing to do with the theme, I don’t care for theme, and most of the time don’t even bother going into the theme with the group I play with. It’s all about the points I say...
I don’t usually care much for Dice games, although Kingsburg is enjoyable but not as meaty as this I would say.
I have no issue with lots of cubes or worker placement games, no placement here, but deciding which area to concentrate on is similar...
Lots of varied cards, can be a curse – one Dominion is enough for me please, you can keep the rest. Agricola, this one goes well with this card, etc, yawn...
It’s just a damn clever design, it all comes together well. One of which I suspect I will be playing for a long time. Refreshingly recommended.
After a few turns the aim of the game becomes clear, but any setup which asks you to choose from 6 cards, with no idea of how any of them work, does make the first game a bit of a test – “why did I take this card, its rubbish” – to only go and repeat the same crap choice again next time, despite thinking you wouldn’t.
What I loved about the 2nd play of this was that there are so many cards, and a completely different set of them came up from last time. Despite all the different cards, which can be overwhelming in games like Agricola, all the cards were clear and self explanatory the benefits obvious and allowed you to build up a set of cards which you think may help you in the future – if you can get them activated. Lots of other games, I’m looking at you Race for the Galaxy and Agricola, you struggle unless you are a seasoned player and have knowledge of how the cards work together, and we tend not to become serious about any game we play – even Ticket To Ride after numerous plays we have no idea of the different routes, never studied them, don’t want to, enjoy the game as it is.
The board is well laid out, with four different sections, all of which you need to decide how you will allocated your, sometimes, very limited turns. The number of turns you can have are decided upon a clever dice system which allows you to only collect the number rolled on the 6 dice in later rounds. If the blue dice is a 1, you can place a 1 blue cube in the next round. If the red dice shows a 2, you get 2 red cubes in two rounds time, etc...allowing you to build up a favourable number of cubes as the rounds go on. What we also liked was that any of the players could use any two of the dice, so if you want the 2 red dice you take two cubes, so could your opponents. And there are only 12 rounds, and the game just flies past.
Cubes are used for almost everything you want to do. We were initially concerned that the luck of the dice rolls could hamper the game. However, the more we play it the more we realise that you’ve got to adapt to what is there, or plan much further ahead. It didn’t really matter if you messed up, you get -3 points and move on. It was still fun.
Each card you initially select is kept on a separate board, you don’t get to use them immediately each one has a cost, in cubes, which needs to be paid. The most frustrating part is you cannot keep cubes left over from round to round, so you need to ensure you have all the cubes you need to activate a card all in the same round. There are also only 6 spaces on your board, and if you haven’t activated cards in time your board fills up and you get -3 penalty points. The above all sounds more complicated than it actually is.
Whilst playing rounds go very quickly. Turn over cards, each choose one, roll the dice, pick your cubes, play your cards, move the ship, move up the wall, take village tokens. We found ourselves playing some of the less critical turns simultaneously which kept the speed going and stopped the game dragging on.
The wall is a neat take on game turn. You can use a cube to move along the wall, or three cubes to move 2 spaces, etc. Keeping just slightly ahead of your opponents means you will get to go first and pick that vital card at the start.
I would really like to understand why I enjoyed this game so much. It’s nothing to do with the theme, I don’t care for theme, and most of the time don’t even bother going into the theme with the group I play with. It’s all about the points I say...
I don’t usually care much for Dice games, although Kingsburg is enjoyable but not as meaty as this I would say.
I have no issue with lots of cubes or worker placement games, no placement here, but deciding which area to concentrate on is similar...
Lots of varied cards, can be a curse – one Dominion is enough for me please, you can keep the rest. Agricola, this one goes well with this card, etc, yawn...
It’s just a damn clever design, it all comes together well. One of which I suspect I will be playing for a long time. Refreshingly recommended.
Refreshing Brass Review from The Bar
Too many games too little time.
We tend not to play any single game multiple times in a row, there is always a new game on the shelf begging for a play. Therefore, this review is based on our initial reactions, after only 1 or 2 plays.
Recent games acquired have not suited the way we have been playing games for the past 15 years.
Are we just getting older or are the rules of some recent games became even less clear? They seem to take multiple readings and even once I think I’ve got them sussed, when it comes to explaining them to everyone else, I seem to fail miserably. I could highlight a few fairly recent additions, Le Havre, Dungeon Lords, Vasco. After a failed start my group enjoys all these games.
However, I’ve came to the conclusion that it’s not the rules that are the issue, but the complexity of the games themselves. These games possibly require a failed ‘first run’ through before getting to grips. We are not used to this, we like to get a game right first time, play it through, enjoy it, then move onto something else. For us, gaming time is too precious to spend 2 hours of a 4 hour games night, every Thursday, ‘getting to know’ a game. Then the game can take 2 hours plus. We usually enjoy trying to get at least 4 games to the table in a night. Is this what makes us a Euro Player?
So what about Brass? I have been reading for years the reviews it’s been receiving, was keeping away from it, since I knew my group didn’t like 2 hour plus games. But it’s in the top 10, I need to have it. When I got the chance to buy it for under 30 GBP, I snaffled it up.
I was eager to play it as we have enjoyed past Martin Wallaces games, Age of Steam, Liberte, Tinners Trail even Princes of the Renaissance.
Easily summarised: Play cards to place counters on cities in Lancashire. 5 different types of counters of increasing levels: cotton mills, ports, coal mines, steel or ships. Connect cities with Canals in the first pass, then railroads. Counters get flipped over when certain conditions are met, then score VPs at the end of first pass, remove all level 1 counters, start again with railroad connections. Score VPs again. Simple.
Except it wasn’t. Not the first time I tried to explain it. Initially we couldn’t figure out if you received victory points or cash for ‘selling’ cotton, money seemed really tight. We then realised we had forgotten about loans. Most games we keep away from loans, usually they carry a penalty. However, here it is different. Loans were more essential and the penalty was slight, a small reduction in your wages.
We gave up early on, since it was clear we were playing it wrong.
However, it didn’t stay off the table for long. With our experience behind us we started the next game in earnest. We all had a vague plan of how we wanted to approach it. We got to the end of the game, in under two hours and all enjoyed the experience.
You could really see all the systems coming together. Strategies were formed and we were able to annoy other players with placements, since cotton could only be sold at ports, grab all the ports. Lots of connections brings in lots of VP’s, go for connections. Lots of different ways to play. Income was coming in thick and fast the other player took more loans than myself and I ended up with the highest pay, but came in last.
It really didn’t matter. We had fun playing it. That’s why we play games. Another thing happened, which doesn’t happen very often, I began to think about the game after the event. I wanted to play it again and try something else out.
Martin scores again.
If you can get past the initial rules explanation, understand how everything joins together, you are in for an highly strategic and enjoyable game. It makes me want to throw out the other 400 games so we can play this more and concentrate to become an expert in just one.
Will never happen. Life’s too short.
We tend not to play any single game multiple times in a row, there is always a new game on the shelf begging for a play. Therefore, this review is based on our initial reactions, after only 1 or 2 plays.
Recent games acquired have not suited the way we have been playing games for the past 15 years.
Are we just getting older or are the rules of some recent games became even less clear? They seem to take multiple readings and even once I think I’ve got them sussed, when it comes to explaining them to everyone else, I seem to fail miserably. I could highlight a few fairly recent additions, Le Havre, Dungeon Lords, Vasco. After a failed start my group enjoys all these games.
However, I’ve came to the conclusion that it’s not the rules that are the issue, but the complexity of the games themselves. These games possibly require a failed ‘first run’ through before getting to grips. We are not used to this, we like to get a game right first time, play it through, enjoy it, then move onto something else. For us, gaming time is too precious to spend 2 hours of a 4 hour games night, every Thursday, ‘getting to know’ a game. Then the game can take 2 hours plus. We usually enjoy trying to get at least 4 games to the table in a night. Is this what makes us a Euro Player?
So what about Brass? I have been reading for years the reviews it’s been receiving, was keeping away from it, since I knew my group didn’t like 2 hour plus games. But it’s in the top 10, I need to have it. When I got the chance to buy it for under 30 GBP, I snaffled it up.
I was eager to play it as we have enjoyed past Martin Wallaces games, Age of Steam, Liberte, Tinners Trail even Princes of the Renaissance.
Easily summarised: Play cards to place counters on cities in Lancashire. 5 different types of counters of increasing levels: cotton mills, ports, coal mines, steel or ships. Connect cities with Canals in the first pass, then railroads. Counters get flipped over when certain conditions are met, then score VPs at the end of first pass, remove all level 1 counters, start again with railroad connections. Score VPs again. Simple.
Except it wasn’t. Not the first time I tried to explain it. Initially we couldn’t figure out if you received victory points or cash for ‘selling’ cotton, money seemed really tight. We then realised we had forgotten about loans. Most games we keep away from loans, usually they carry a penalty. However, here it is different. Loans were more essential and the penalty was slight, a small reduction in your wages.
We gave up early on, since it was clear we were playing it wrong.
However, it didn’t stay off the table for long. With our experience behind us we started the next game in earnest. We all had a vague plan of how we wanted to approach it. We got to the end of the game, in under two hours and all enjoyed the experience.
You could really see all the systems coming together. Strategies were formed and we were able to annoy other players with placements, since cotton could only be sold at ports, grab all the ports. Lots of connections brings in lots of VP’s, go for connections. Lots of different ways to play. Income was coming in thick and fast the other player took more loans than myself and I ended up with the highest pay, but came in last.
It really didn’t matter. We had fun playing it. That’s why we play games. Another thing happened, which doesn’t happen very often, I began to think about the game after the event. I wanted to play it again and try something else out.
Martin scores again.
If you can get past the initial rules explanation, understand how everything joins together, you are in for an highly strategic and enjoyable game. It makes me want to throw out the other 400 games so we can play this more and concentrate to become an expert in just one.
Will never happen. Life’s too short.
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