Why I like - TICKET TO RIDE

“Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson,

“America's one of the finest countries anyone ever stole.” ~Bobcat Goldthwaite

Alright yes first and foremost I’m going to bullet point Ticket to Ride (the Original USA map) game in a light that will probably annoy some, confuse most and possibly piss off a few. I like Ticket to Ride because:

** Well the first edition of this amazing series was based in America!

** Once the 1910 USA expansion came out it solidified my love of this map and this instance of this game. Again making the best of the series (in my opinion) America!

** When you think of trains in the era of the original game you tend to think about those tracks crossing America which is probably why it’s based in America!

So I’m proud to be an American and TtR brought forth Euro game mechanics, from a British game designer who’s games I tend to like and based the whole thing in my beloved country. Without going into a long dissertation on this country I’ll just give you the quick synopsis. This country does have some serious problems and our current political system will not fix them, ever. That’s all you’ll get out of me so stop asking. Anyone who knows me in the gaming world knows that’s more than I’m use to saying. Hell when I started the gaming club here in Gainesville, FL the first (and only) rule was “No talking religion or politics or you go home.” So there, I’ve said my peace now let’s move on to the game.

As mentioned a moment ago, the game is designed by Alan R. Moon (look in the picture...he's playing the original Ticket To Ride!) who’s game mechanics I enjoy because of the limiting nature of his designs. Typically speaking in a Moon game you have about a thousand things to get done in the time it takes to get 20 things done in. Hard decisions must be made. Still TtR pushes on with a brilliant method of never making you feel like you are totally screwed out of a connection as there’s always another way around…it may not be the most direct route but hey that’s gaming isn’t it?

I enjoy the simple nature of the game. There are only ever 3 actions. Draw cards, play cards/lay trains, draw new tickets. That’s it. One action per turn, even though you want at least 2 actions almost every turn, you get one action and that is it! This design allows this game to be quickly taught to anyone. Literally anyone and I don’t care if they are hobby gamers or not, they WILL understand this game.

Having owned this game since it’s inception in 2004 I can say that I’ve taught this game to many a game player. I’ve run it at conventions and toted it around with me on holidays. I’ve broke the bits down to baggies and shoved board/cards/baggies into suitcase and very much like the theme of the game itself traveled this game around the United States. The game is always well received and as a result I can count a verified 9 copies of the game that I am responsible for selling. Granted I believe the number to a lot higher than that but there are 9 copies that I can be positive were sold due to me. (You’re welcome Days of Wonder.) The game got a good bit of main stream coverage with an article on board games mentioning it in Reader’s Digest and it was sold on the shelves of Toys-R-Us. By and afar this game has etched itself into gaming history stronger than many other games out there. Throw in the expansions and the other versions of the system and you’ve got a gaming dynasty . . .and that’s why I like Ticket To Ride.

Why I like - YS

First off you gotta like a game where before you even open the box you can have a debate about the game start up! “How do you pronounce that?” There’s several options:

Fir** Ee’s. Which is my preferred pronunciation and being as I usually play with my copy of the game the “Official” pronunciation when I’m playing.

** Why’s. Like you are saying the name of the letter in multiples. Then again this just make is sound like you live in a trailer park, drink beer for breakfast, live through the week to watch NASCAR have a truck up on cinder blocks in the yard and like both types of music. Country and Western.

** Iss. Sounds like Hiss or Kiss. No witty retort here on this but it’s still just wrong.

So now we have how that out of the way let’s move to the game itself. I first discovered this type of game in Aladdin’s Dragons and I loved that game quite a bit. The basic mechanic is picked up in Ys but some things are just handled better in Ys than they were in Aladdin’s.

What exactly am I talking about here? Boil it down it’s bidding. I like bidding games and this is a neat combination of open and blind bidding all in one package. The thing is, it’s bidding on so many things all at once while other players want the same things. On a very glossing view of it all consider that there are a total of 24 places on the board to bid for and you get to place a total of 8 bids each round. Not to mention that of 12 of them the three city sections will then have 3 sections in each of the 4 neighborhoods combine for an overall bid as well. WOW! Now that’s some keen thinking there.

Next throw in the “optional” (as the rules call it but I teach it as a firm part of the game) King’s Favor element and now you have to trade out one of your bidding brokers for a simple “2” value for the shot at some end game points.

Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy action cards. I talk about them a lot and have even developed an action card deck for Crokinole. Despite my constant talk of action cards I do like them to be balanced. I have deck that overpowers a game but I don’t like a deck that doesn’t shake the game up a bit was added to give the game more perceived value by adding another component to the game. While I’m at it I’ll say that I loath a deck that was added to the game to “Fix” problems found in play testing and I’ve seen on several occasions that the action card deck is used for this. However the cards in Ys fit the bill (for me) to an exacting precision of enjoyment. There are very few cards in this deck to begin with and give that round 4 cards are all “white gems” you only have 12 cards ever to be possibly played! I’ve found a reason to use every card at least once in a positive manner. Some are very situational and well those just get passed over if the situation doesn’t arise but others become favorites of different players and are fought over with zeal. This is an excellent deck of action cards.

Hidden resources (gems) makes for a fun little twist on the game as you can never really be sure who is winning the game. Those end game points add up BIG TIME and if you come in 1^st or 2^nd in a couple of gems makes a huge difference. Sure you do see every gem every player takes and if you have a perfect memory can figure it all out but for the rest of us who consider ourselves normal humans we can’t keep track of that crap and find a thrill in waiting to see who has what for gems.

So I like Ys basically for all it’s mechanics put together. It’s a great game from start to finish and once everyone knows how to play the game it flows quickly and smoothly. If you haven’t played it yet check it out.

Why I Like - ACQUIRE

I picked up my 1^st copy of this game (the 1995 version with the completely silly “power tiles” in it) many years back. A thrift store find I didn’t think much of at the time yet still had high hopes for. Once I started playing it I knew I had found a life long favorite game…but little did I know how completely I’d love this amazing classic of a game.

Once I started my gaming group back March of 2004 I started bringing my copy of Acquire out. Now at this point I was mainly introducing games to what we in the hobby gaming community like to call “non-gamers.” You know ‘em, and you’ve played with ‘em. Those people who love to game but their knowledge is limited to what can be bought at Toys-R-Us. This lead to every game I brought out to be given a comparison to a game they were familiar with. Mare Nostrum has battling units so it must be like Risk. Boomtown has cards so it must be like Rummy. Acquire was the KING of these comparison as:

** It has tiles in a bag so it must be JUST LIKE Scrabble

** It has hotels so it must be JUST LIKE Monopoly

It got to be a real joke and some of the originals of that early gaming club group will still throw those around when Acquire comes out…ahhhhh nostalgia. However that doesn’t help you the reader of this in the least now does it?

I’d say one of the main reasons I like Acquire is the same as one of the main reasons I like Carcassonne so much. Both on the surface look like such a nice little friendly game…yet lying just under the surface of that façade lies a devious game filled with nasty nasty dickery at ever tile pull.

Next up for me in my favorite factor with this game is the metagame. WOW the metagame in Acquire is huge. Making subtle (and not so subtle) little (and not so little) comments about wishing for a certain tile while you can plainly see it’s sitting right there on your tray. Offhandedly (and not so offhandedly) wishing aloud that you’d like to see a chain merge knowing you won’t get a portion of the credit and then next turn after everyone has sold off their stake in the chain restarting the chain and being majority share holder.

The luck factor. Now I know this will rub a lot of people who are into designer board games the wrong way but I love the luck factor of pulling random tiles from a bag. Hell I do believe that having 6 tiles on a tray to choose from does indeed help mitigate the luck there still comes a point in every game where you are literally waiting on one frigging tile. Will you get it in time? Who the fuck knows but it’s tense waiting on it and I love that dread you feel when others are pulling from the bag and you just feel like you know they are getting your tile, bastards!

I also love that this incredible game is a Sid Sackson product. No he’s not my favorite designer and sure a lot of the games he did put together are…well a bit lame but here’s a game that stands heads and shoulders above lots of other games and it’s what? An American designed game! Yes that does add a bit of enjoyment to this game for me and this is called why I like Acquire so there it is!

Finally I like the idea that this game has stood the test of time. Having been originally published in 1962 it’s amazing to me that there is still so much demand for the game. To see some of the prices people are paying for various editions of this game amazes me! How many online or downloadable computer formats are there for this game? I suppose I could look it up but hey I’m writing a review and lazy so I won’t bother but suffice it say there’s a LOT! Now we have a new affordable version of the game out that with a low price point like it has will likely garner new fans, and maybe even people who are not typical gamers may discover it now. Will be interesting to see if some of these games we all raving about right now will still be as revered 46 years down the road.

Acquire! A rich, simple, sharp game that lives on to this day. Bravo Mr. Sackson, I salute you!

"Why I Like..." Reviews series

Quite sometime back I decided to write some pretty simple "reviews" of the games I like. These will all be games that I truly enjoy and the reviews will be simple, short and just highlight a few reasons I like said game.

As everything I do I started my good idea then my Gen X nature took over and it got shoved down and forgot about.

I did a game order the other day and low and behold I found the reviews I wrote and started stored in my e-mail. So for better or for worse I'm going to post them here. There are some completed and some that were started...I will post the completed ones and possibly finish/post the others. Who knows. If you are actually reading this stupid blog then you know I'm really not that consistent so don't hold your breath.

THoiA

Where The HELL Have You Been THoiA?

Where the hell have I been? Well Hell seems to be about right. I know you probably aren't interested in the gory details but life's been changing and it's been hard. I've made little effort to keep up with gaming in this time of transition for myself but once again I'm beginning to make the turn around and that started with the purchase of a few games. Check out those recently acquired games (which oddly enough includes a complete copy of the old AH version of Acquire I got at a thrift store for $1.25...even has all 6 of the value cards!)

I gotta start slow and go at my own pace though. I played some games this past weekend and think I got some buddies coming over during the week to game too so who knows. Dip the toe in the water and I'll be back soon enough.

By slow I guess I'm talking about a 3 day convention in Jacksonville...Rapier 2008. www.rapiercon.com if you want to check that out.

I have joined a monthly gaming group who are mostly non-gamers playing party game type of stuff. It was fun met some new people and plan on going back again next month. They were very receptive to Ticket to Ride and I'm sure they'll get into other gateway games as I bring them.

I recently made a large game order and purchased a few things off of eBay not to mention some pretty cool trips to some thrift stores around town which have paid off handsomely. I'm also currently listed in a math trade on Board Game Geek so all this stuff I see as distinct positive moves to getting back into gaming like I want to be...next thing you know I'll be writing on this stupid blog for no one to read again.

Everyone Likes A Little Action

Last time I said "All games deserve a theme." Now I'm going to throw out a mechanic that I think can be grossly over looked by some designers and yet wholly embraced by others. A part of a game that can shake things up, change player positions and keep everyone on their toes. An element that must be handled with care in design as it can prove to be totally pointless or over power a game if not implemented with care. That piece of gaming is. . .Action Cards. With precious few exceptions I'm here to claim today that All games should have action cards. I've jokingly said this to many people in our group. Now while jokingly said secretly it's always meant when you hear me say "This game needs action cards." Most of the time when I start pointing out how they could be used I'm agreed with.

Now before I get started on this one let me state I know a lot of you are going to claim me insane for some of my suggestions. I can already hear the cries of "That game works great like it is, perfect design doesn't need improving upon." Here's there thing though...had your favorite game been released with a deck of action cards chances are you'd love it just the same and argue that the game simply could not be played without that deck of cards. With that said when I get to the point where I'm talking about a game you dearly love and adore, remember that line, shut the fuck up and keep reading. Once you've read the whole post you can leave your thoughts in the "Unimportant Opinions" section if you really feel the need to 'call me out.' Otherwise go curl up in a dark corner of your closet, cradle yourself and you wipe the salty tears of rejection off your cheek, shaking and thinking over and over "the big scary man with a blog attacked my favorite little board game.

What was I talking about again?

Action cards! One of my favorite pieces in any game typically...when implemented correctly that is. You have no idea how excited I was when I first came across Nightmare Chess. Not only by one of my favorite game designers but it was an attempt to make chess a fun game to play!

I'm not so thick as to think that all games with action cards are designed well to include them. of course. Often times certain cards or even the entire deck itself seems to have been an afterthought or thrown into the game as a remedy to a fundamental problem with the game itself. As a guy who dreams of being a game designer myself and who has several games developed and play tested I can understand the heart ache of putting work into a game, play testing it only to have to giving a big sigh of disappointment and think "Damn, this was a good idea but it kind of doesn't work." At that point said game should be stripped down and be completely retooled like you'd do to a 2 dollar whore. Games like that can be saved but an action deck is not always the answer...yet then sometimes it is.

I bring to you my first suggestion and (as I like to do when I write these things I'll now point out that this is) the catalyst for this entry. Fagin's Gang. This game releases and I'm immediately intrigued by it simply because it's a board game based on a literary piece. NICE! So I read about it and well some comments are not as favorable as others but that happens and still I liked the idea of the game and the description of game play so here we go. The game absolutely works. The game is sort of fun. Ahhhhhhh now there's the problem innit? Only sort of fun. Where I felt the game fell down was what they call the "Market." Everyone goes to the market and then bails out when they can't or don't want to buy or sell. At times people would sell a commodity only to buy it right back the next round just to stay in the market for 2 extra turns. Combine this with several places that a good action card would just help out those "helpless" situations or make players be very careful about positioning due to the fear of an action card and this game would rock! What if a deck were included and when the market started cards equal to half the number of players rounded down are turned faced up. The first person to leave the market first takes a card and so on. Now there is even incentive to leave the market if you don't really have business there. (HINT This is fixing a little problem with theme.) As for the details of the cards...well I'm actually developing those and you'll have to check the Geek for variants to find them once I ever get them done. Flavor, tension and functionality all added to this game in a heavy dose via action cards.

Here's a new game that came out and took the gaming world by storm! I've played it a few times now and I love this game. It's greatness in cardboard form. A full on finance game with a bit of warfare and a smackling of screwage as far as the countries go. What's not to love? Not much actually but an action card deck is just that much more to love. I haven't quite figured out how to get cards into players hands. Perhaps if you have the option to invest (as in you hold the investor tile or do not hold any nation's flag due to not being majority stock holder in any of them) and choose to not invest you draw a card. This however might not put enough cards in play however and perchance too many in one single players hand. Another thought is if you control a nation and pass the investor spot on the rondel all players who have stock in the nation get to draw one card. That might work but we'd have to see. The cards here could represent all sorts of things from exceptional markets (discount for a nation who imports this turn or an extra unit can be imported) to espionage (remove a dollar figure from a nations available funds) to special defenses (cancel one battle.) There are so many ideas for cards in this game it's not funny. All would do the same as with Fagin's Gang, generate tension on what might get played or be a small helping boost when you need it most and as I pointed out would be very thematic as well. Cards here are a great idea.

Well I recently got to play a game that I have heard quite a few good things about. I was personally let down by it. Oh it looks great. Bits are nice chunky plastic pieces nicely molded. The game play however, while having more screw factor than expected, ended up being a bit...boring. There it is again! Dull game play. This game could easily benefit from...yes I'm saying it again Action Cards people! This time the game in question is Manhattan and yes I deliberately did not include a picture because I wanted to bury the title in the paragraph. Those who are familiar with this game can just imagine the beauty of it 12 to 15, maybe 18 cards shuffled right into the deck. For this game I'd implement goofiness in the cards. "All players pass their cards to the player on their left." "When a player plays a card for placement discard this card to immediately take that card then give them the top card from the deck as their new placement card." Yes of course I'd also have..."Godzilla attacks! Remove the top piece from every building in one city." Dammit people you know this is a good idea!

That right there are three perfectly reasonable examples of games that could have action cards and the game would only benefit from it. There are so many others though that I hereby choose to not go into detail with but I've thought about it. Some of those are; Puerto Rico, Ticket To Ride, Formula De', Hansa, China, California and honestly the list could go on and on. Tons of games...basically what I'm saying is the only games that instantly come to mind that do not need action cards are the ones what have them already built in.

I know what you are thinking. He's managed to name off and defend quite a few board games thus far is that all he's got? Hell no!


How about Liar's Dice? A pure die rolling, bluffing game right? A game that's been rethemed and licensed so many times it's stupid. From fancy board versions to the ghetto print out to just grab a cup and 5 six sided dice. (That's the Front Porch Classics version there to the left. Fancy schmancy I know. I picked it up for about 5 bucks at the annual Barnes & Noble's clearance sale...great box looks nice but still a dumb ass game.) Getting action cards into this would simple just give them out at the beginning of the game or maybe each time you lose a die you draw a card. Cards could be literally anything that felt like it would work in your group. From logical to sheer dickery. Steal a die from the leader. Change one die result after revealing dice. Making cards for this is so easy I could spew them out like the drunk bitch at a party spews half digested pizza after her 7th shot of tequila. This is the part where fans of this inane game spout off that action cards would ruin the perfect balance of the game as it is. WTF!?!? This is a pretty lame game people how the fuck could action cards screw it up any more? All I see action cards doing here is adding a nice new unexpected element to a relatively boring game perhaps creating the rift in time and space that would make me actually want to play this.

There is one other game but I'm hesitant to mention it here I think it would shock you more than any other game I have mentioned thus far. The truth is however that I am reluctant to mention said game as I have in the works already an action deck designed and am considering marketing it on it's own. So I'd tell you but intellectual property rights and all...and really you think I love you that much? After all that's been said in this blog? It's a cold world out there and I'm happy to bring a bit of the cruel coldness to you right here on. . .The Dice Hate Me. Until next time get out there get yourself a bit of action...and you dork I'm not talking about board gaming here. Seeya kiddies.

I Am a Theme Whore . . . Hey Buddy You Looking to Party?

My inspiration for this blog comes from a review I recently wrote for Board Game News. The game was Mad Scientist University (a very so-so game, don't bother seeking it out too hard but as a sweetener in a trade it might be a neat addition to your game collection) which is just a story telling game. Most of these story telling games are wide open but this one had a very cute theme. Taking over the world...Mad Scientist style! That addition of theme was my favorite part of the game and made me realize that I am a theme whore. In fact to quote myself I said that I was indeed "A full-fledged, street-walking, corner-working theme whore." I should throw out there that I'm my own whore though I don't have a pimp. Where my money at? It's in my pocket!

OK Well let's get back on track...if this entry even has a fucking track to get back on. I guess what I'm saying is design a game and give it a well rounded theme and I'm there! Design a game with great mechanics and make it abstract...I'll play it a few times then get bored with it. All games deserve a theme. It's as simple as that. Case in point, Reiner's (Yes I'm on a first name basis with him) little game Samurai. This game is certainly an abstract game. When you set out to giving this game a go you don't feel like you are doing the things that are typically associated with the bloody images generated by the word "Samurai." Still thematically the game works. There was a time when Feudal Japan was no longer a warring nation and what are honored Samurai to do when there is no war? Well they setup school, they furthered their educations, they became figures of business and in general reinforced their status with the locals of the land. Hey that kind of feels like exactly what you are doing in this game. This game is by far not a favorite of mine, and I rarely suggest it however, if there are others who want to play the game I never hesitate or try to dissuade them to another game. Someone wants to play Samurai? Alright let's get those beautiful little black resin pieces and that awesome die-cut board out and via for position across the island nation! I'm in! Call me whore for I am proud.

Contrast this to another of my pal Reiner's games that I feel has even better game mechanics than Samurai but no theme to it what-so-ever... Ingenious. Damn what a really cool game with very cool mechanics. Flavor? Totally lacking. This probably explains why I have yet to add this game to my collection. I get to play it now and again at con's and such and I get my fill. Still if I were able to think of myself as a character of some sort, attempting to fulfill some sort of goal I'm certain I'd have a copy of the game in my closet right now. (Half my games must be gay as they are in a closet. I have the other half in a cupboard...and some strewn around the house here and there as you can imagine.) No doubt about it you can feel that this game plays very similarly to some of Reiner's other designs but those have (as people like to pick on him for) a theme pasted on. ME I'm not going to pick I'm going to applaud the addition of theme to those games and fuck it I'll say flat out that I think this game would sell better over all (not just to me) to gamers, specifically American gamers who like designer board games, had it been included with a theme. I'd suggest Kingdom's as the proof to this. That game is certainly an abstract numbers game. Yet slap on a little theme and the game goes to FF's Silver Line and does pretty well, then get's reimplemented as Beowulf the Movie board game in a big box...hmmmmm wonder if that would have happened if this were themeless? Doubtful. This whore would buy the theme game.

Now I have to turn my attention to the GIPF Project games. WOW cool games. Much like Ingenious they have great mechanics. Given them theme-free abstract nature however I own..none of them and won't. I'd much rather pick up Ponte del Diavolo as there is evidence of even the slightest bit of theme slapped on with islands and bridges and neatness like that. Better yet than Ponte del Diavolo is Uberplay's much underrated game The Bridges of Shangri-La or as we have dubbed the game in our group "The War of Enlightenment." Given that we can so easily turn enlightenment into a warring aspect shows you just how loosely this theme is attached to a very abstract and number counting game. Still the game can be fun. Yes there is some down time and really be careful not to play with AP'ers as their turn can easily become 5 to 8 minutes every time. This game is not Colovini's (not on a first name basis with Leo but working on it) best game to date by far. I'm not going to try and convince you of that. Never the less it's a good game and it's got a neat little theme and let's you destroy bridges. When do I get to do that sort of thing in Zertz? Never...I AM WHORE.

I feel like I've made my point here. In addition to that I feel like there's a lot of gamers out there who will agree with me. You may not want to in your head but your heart screams "He's RIGHT, Give me theme I'm a whore too!" It's not the popular view point to get this hung up on a game having theme but fuck popularity. We play games to entertain our brains and challenge us not to be popular. I (and I believe a lot of you out there too) can derive that entertainment to a higher level with a theme. I do not think that is everyone...there are plenty of people who don't need a theme...but they freaks anyway who get off on statistics, probably watch anime porn,who's idea of a good book would never have a vampire or zombie in it and wears those extremely lame shirts sold by woot. ( http://shirt.woot.com ) So screw them anyway.

Stand with me, embrace your title and be proud...be a theme whore.

Why Do I Gotta Be Mr. Pink?

So it's the first day of the 2008 huh? What did I do? I created Pink microbadges for BGG. Here's what they look like:



Yep that's right they look identical to all the other "I play with X color" microbadges but I was surprised to see Pink wasn't an option. Here I am with this handy dandy microbadge coupon and the badge I want doesn't even exist. So I took care of that.

Now why on Earth would a guy like me want a "I Play With Pink!" microbadge you ask. No I'm not gay I'm actually very heterosexual if you haven't picked up on that by now. In fact one of my reasons in choosing pink whenever it's available is based around my extreme heterosexuality but that's still coming. (Pun very much intended so all you pervs get bonus points.)

The first and probably most originating reason is simply this. I'm very amicable about what color I play in a game. In our group we have one player who always plays WHITE (as his last name is White) one who always plays yellow (as he feels no one likes yellow so now it's his favorite) and one who always plays red (as...well I don't know why but he's always RED!) So in the handful of games where pink was available I found that color was the last option to be picked time and time again. I gladly picked up the color and found I've got some pretty good success with it.

You probably would never have guessed it but I kind of like violent movies. I know that comment may seem a bit "out of left field" for this topic but hang with me Cochise and you'll see where I'm going. Being a fan of ridiculously violent films Reservoir Dogs certainly reigns in some of the my favorite of the genre. Now if you are familiar with the film you will know that Steve Buscemi plays the character Mr. Pink in the movie (all the gangsters are given "colors" so no one knows each other's name when the job is done) and puts up a pretty good fight against being dubbed Mr. Pink. Still at the end of the movie who is the only character left alive? Mr. Pink. Oh wait a second and who had the diamonds last? Mr. Pink. Who stashed the diamonds before showing up to the redevous point? Mr. Pink. Who's gonna make off with ALL the diamonds all to himself? Mr. Pink...so in that little game who in fact is the winner? MR. PINK! Seems like a logical enough reason to pick up the pieces and play the color. Call me Mr. Pink and it's your doom bitches!

Here we are, 2 reasons for playing pink down. One of them reasonable one of them at the very least humorous. So where is that highly heterosexual reason? I like playing with pink bits. When I make a comment like that I'm not talking about anything that has anything at all to do with gaming here boys. Throw your mind in the gutter (or at least between a womans legs) and you'll get what I'm driving at. So if I can't be out there with a woman playing with the pink bits I like the most...I'm damn well sure going to play with the only pink bits available to me!

In closing, I like to play pink now. It's become my own little monicker almost in our group. Everyone knows now to leave pink for me...but they all seem to be alright with that, except when they get beaten down like little punk assed playa's by PINK. I don't go out of my way to buy a game just for pink pieces but I have painted some pieces pink in games that didn't include that color. I even purchase a very old copy of Risk recently just so I could cannibalize the beautiful wooden cubes (and those pill shaped pieces too) that they had back in the day because...PINK was a possible color. Am I obsessed with pink? Maybe. Do I care? For shit's sake, NO! Was this a waste of a blog to write and your time to read? Of course! I've now deleted a few more minutes of your life...and it felt good.

A Little Rally for the Valley

An observation of mine is that people in general, just aren't happy, can't be made to be happy and quite possibly don't want to be happy. Perhaps the only happiness a lot of people feel they can even begin to revel in is their ability to piss and moan about the things that make them unhappy. Then when they get to a point in life where things are relatively good for them they realize they don't have any unhappy things to piss and moan about so they are truly unhappy. This gives them the go ahead to begin pissing and moaning about the stupidest of shit in an effort to restore their glory days of piss/moan happiness. Stupid shit that really doesn't matter yet somehow through their departing of wisdom upon us...their eager to listen masses...elevates them to some knowledgeable level of being and they can then look down upon as royalty in their realm as they reign king....of nothing.

OK so I'm in a bit of spiteful piss/moan mood of my own tonight, bite me.

"What the hell is this all about" I can hear you asking from behind your compy screens. Suppose I should get into then and at least clue you in to what the catalyst of this entry was. See there's this website all about board games. It's a site that I never mention (I'm lying) here in this blog. It's a site that I never (still lying) reference or refer people to and I certainly don't (yep, another lie) have their widgets embedded into my blog on the left over there showing you bits of my collection, etc. On said website they occasionally have a little podcast by the dude who runs it and the dude who use to run but it and helped set it up and then moved away so he only shows up every now and then. I'm going to be kind and not say that I'm talking about Derk here. While at it I'll also not say that I do like Derk and feel we have a good bit in common taste wise in games. I'll further say that I even think a bit of personality matches between us as well, at least judging by his posts and comments.

So recently the unnamed Derk joined Aldie on a podcast and the topic was brought up about Valley Games and all their reprints. Derk made a couple of comments that I feel were...well wrong. His comments were basically that he didn't think Valley chose wisely in their target market as the fans of the games were going to be the rabid crazed fans of the game and nit pick everything. He furthermore said that he felt reprinting some of these games was not a good idea as all the people who needed these games already had them.

To be fair to the unnamed Derk, he was as I said just the catalyst to this posting. In addition to his comments this fire has been fueled for awhile now in the comments and thoughts of gamers who post their dislike for minor...MINOR things that they blow way out or proportion in respect to Valley Games' reprints. (See my opening paragraph.)

Bottom line is that it's my personal opinion that Valley Games has done very well for themselves in almost all areas of their business model. As a young company and one new to the world of game publishing they have had a couple of hurdles to get over but they got over them and did so magnificently. So their pre-orders were slow...so what that happens. People get a grip for fuck's sake already. Valley Games went on to make it up to the pre-orderers by giving them extra sculptures (which I know also haven't arrived yet) than they previously promised. On top of that what you really did by pre-ordering your games from Valley Games was to ensure the game itself would get printed. Young companies need this kind of cash in hand and pre-orders do that for them. The sculps are just bonuses. It's like the crap the give you for pledging to your local public television station or the t-shirt you get for giving blood. You do what you do for the fact of doing it and it's not suppose to be about the bonuses. In this case what you are doing is specifically putting money up front to get the game you want...now sit back and be patient and low and behold your game did in fact arrive. Congratulations due to your direct contribution your helped birth the game. Smile, be happy, stop all your pissing and moaning about the delays. Shit happens people. Deal with it.

Then there are those who complain about the little nuances of the production. Maybe the art is this or that. Maybe the chits are circle and should be squares. Fucking mother douche bags! Isn't it possible that the original artwork was flawed? Hell maybe a dye lot got screwed up between proof and print. That's been known to happen, so what should be done then? Should the entire shipment be sent back to be reprinted meaning another 6 months wait time? Yeah that's all Valley Games would need!

As for their selection well for me I say it's been so-so. At any rate the big price tags that these games have been fetching on eBay means there are people interested in it. If it were only a handful of people the bids wouldn't get so high. So from a market stand point I think they did very well. Will sell games to new people who are curious, people who loved it but don't have it now and sure some completeist will buy it to have all versions of their beloved game. Good call. I do wonder about the MSRPs though. Perhaps some of their game choices which have higher prices might not move as many units just due to the cost of the game. I know I have actively avoided certain games because it's hard for me swallow shelling out more than $50 for a stupid board game.

To wrap things up this is a heart and supportive shout to Valley Games and a furrowed brow and scornful "Back off" to their detractors. Don't like Valley Games fine don't buy their products. Me I'm probably gonna own some of their games. Some I won't. Simple as that. The quality of their releases has been fantastic and the games have been a blast to play so far. Hey Ho! Let's go! Bring the games Valley some of us out there really appreciate what you've done for us so far.

The Value of a Box of Bits...Hey Look It's a Bandwagon, I Better Jump On!

All good and worthy news sources out there report on the "hot topics" of the moment. Granted there is no way of mistaking TDHM for anything good or worthy much less a source for news but screw that as I said in the title I'm jumping on the bandwagon here and gonna talk about the infamous Mayfair deal of limiting how much a retailer can discount their product. Am I late on the topic? Yeah probably but I don't really care. Don't like it you can skip your happy ass right along to the next blog and ready about Susy Whitler's newest quilting session.

Hold on to your balls boys because as cheap as I am and as many times as I have ordered from online retailers I'm going to give a big 'ole "BRAVO" to Mayfair Games for being proactive in taking the first step to save our hobby. That's right I said Mayfair is trying to save our hobby! No I'm not one of those people who think that the internet is going to kill off this or put that out of business (see my previous post about Rays of F'ing Light and you'll see that my thought process is pretty much still the same here. That thought process is simply that online retailers are now feeling a bit of the crunch that the FLGS have been feeling for awhile and maybe they will need to rethink/rework their business model. Just like the FLGS also still need to rethink/rework their business model the only difference is now one of their product manufacturers is stepping up in support of them.

The only way for our hobby and that being the hobby of designer board gaming, to grow is for new people to find these games and play them. So the question then is how is that likely to happen? By some schlep sitting on the net surfing porn and jerking off who accidentally clicks over onto a site about board gaming (probability factor less than 1%). What about some schlep who happens to be taking his kid in to some new store that opened up in town to buy him some of the new Magic the Gathering expansion and he happens to see some board game that is themed around one of his favorite hobbies or something else that intrigues him? Which of these situations seems more plausible to you for creating a new fan of board games? (and YES I'm quite certain you were hoping for a nice porn image instead of me visualizing the MtG example but I do have scruples. Wait no I don't have scruples but there are rules for blogging that I was forced to agree to in order to have this blog in the first place. So blame "the man" for keeping you oppressed and absent of porn here at TDHM...or maybe check out http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/ )

Now I'm not a rich man. If I were I wouldn't be able to be bothered with writing bullshit for gamer geeks like you anyway. If I were rich I'd be far too busy entertaining all the hot ladies on my yatch all along the Spanish Rivera leaving me precious little time to play, think about and as mentioned write about a silly thing like board games. (Again no porn or hot chicks...that link for you one more time was http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/ ) My point here is that I understand the need to be frugal in shopping for games. No doubt about that. Hell for a long time I was the only person brining games to our group's gaming session as no one even owned any. [One of the negatives of living in a college town is that it's filled with poor students, of course one of the positives is all the hot young female students who walk around in next to nothing....sigh ( http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/ ) ] So there's some sort of balancing act that you as a fan of these games, as a hobbist, as someone who (should) give a shit about the future of gaming must work with.

Now who should be the responsible ones? On the one hand you have those who are more affluent than others...should they be the ones to only buy from FLGS? Well given that they are going to buy a large number of games if they did these few gamers could effectively fuel these stores almost by themselves. The truth is quite often these are also the ones who bring a large number of new titles out to be played. So then think how many more titles they can obtain and bring out if they were getting 30%-35%!

Then again let's say you are one who doesn't buy nearly that kind of numbers. What of you? Should you save up to buy a game or two here and there? Paying an extra 30%-35% would certainly slow your acquisition of games and that sucks ass too.

Mostly I think people will fall in between those marks. Regardless of this fact however I think that ALL of us are responsible parties. If you are gamer and you purchase games despite the quantity you purchase you need to be mindful of your purchases and spread them out. Buy some from online retailers and hell, I suggest you buy from those who offer free shipping at certain price points...if you are not going to buy enough to fulfill said minimum amount for free shipping get a group together and all go in. This way 4 or 5 of you will get a cheap game and no one pays shipping. This will also pressure those who don't offer free shipping price points to get off their asses and step up!

Still there are times you need to carry your sorry carcass into your local FLGS hang out and pick up that one game you really have been drooling over but for whatever reason haven't picked up...buy it! It's right there dammit, be an American and satisfy that instant gratification bullshit drive we all have in us.

Me personally well I can say that I very rarely purchase a $50-$55 game that I can easily buy online for $30-$35. Smaller games however I buy frequently locally. I mean when the difference is paying $20 for a game that is $15 online...well. I also tend to buy expansions locally because they fall into those price ranges as well as those lovely small box Fantasy Flight games and a few tuck box games. The profit margin is percentage wise still the same for the FLGS so when they look at their numbers they are going to see that they sold units in their board game inventory and encourage them to carry more and different titles. There will be plenty of people who walk in and pick up the bigger price tag titles too. Most of the places that sell games these days are not solely targeting us. Again they are going to carry the MtG expansions and probably some comics as well so again those dads bringing their kids in have a chance to browse these new shiny boxes of goodness.

Again I say bravo to Mayfair for stepping up and putting their neck out there. Days of Wonder! Where are you? Why aren't you next on this? DoW has a great line of products, great marketing and could easily jump into this as well and know that their product is still going to get stocked. Rio Grande? All their games are SDJ winners or nominees that alone is going to sell units no matter what the cheap ass gamers gotta pay for them! Enough buzz on BGG and there's gonna be a package sold and shipped right there.

Alright bitches that's my take on the situation like it or not. (As per usual with me.) Now for your horn dogs who've been waiting I'll throw up an image for you that relates to this paragraph specifically. Gotta love the internet, check out those hot little pink panties...damn you are pathetic. http://pornaddictsanonymous.com/

Games That Make You Go FUCK! Part 2: "Six Stress Stimulators"

In my first column by the similar name I explained the thought process behind Games That Make You Go Fuck! Granted that first one was written from a negative slant but this one will be games that I do thoroughly enjoy but never the less make you go...Fuck!

Six Stress Stimulators are those games that even during the damnable setup of the game you are thinking to yourself "Dear God what have I got myself into?" or "Damn I hope I can manage to achieve X scenario before Joe-Bob" or even "Wasn't that colonoscopy I had done the other day less painful than this game?"

Yes these are games that I do adore and for some bizarre reason want to play again and again even though I'm pretty certain that either before or during the early rounds of these games I've been known to grumble "I hate this fucking game." Isn't that the mark of a good game though? Make those brain cells burn! Those gut wrenching decisions that you are not sure will pan out exactly like you wanted them to. Ahhhhhh yes sit down, play the game and go FUCK!

Die Macher. Certainly the inspiration for this list. The legend itself. The fabled game entry #1 on BGG and for a long time in the top 10 games on BGG. Yes a serious four hour tromp through the world of Germanic Politics at it's finest. What can I say about this game that has not already been said somewhere? I suppose I could say that playing Die Macher can be compared to taking a fine ground pesto paste, adding Tabasco sauce to it, smearing it on your gentiles and letting a goat lick it clean. In that I mean it's a bit scary to even to begin with, is a bit painful in the execution but somewhere along the line has a strong element of excitement and if the goat works it just right has a big pay off at the end. I could say and feel pretty good that nothing like that has ever been said in reference to this game to date. Yes I could say that but as I don't own a goat I have no real point of reference for that statement.

Die Macher is one of the few games that I've played that managed to squirm it's weasley ass into the coveted "Rank 10" spot on my BGG profile. Yes the game is that engaging. You get so sucked into this game that you do not feel the 4 hours slip past you like 4 hours of watching bum fights. You can't just say you have a tough decision to make right now...you have to consider how this decision is going to impact what you have decided to already decide in the next 3 or 4 phases of this turn not to mention the entire next turn of the fucking game. Damn I'm tired just thinking about a game turn...but I do want to play it.

Diplomacy. Ahhhhhh the grand daddy of the of the "Who's the biggest asshole" games. I mean really people. There is nothing quite like spending 5-6 hours of your pitiful life huddled around a table, getting up to go talk to this backstabber that wants you to screw that guy, come back and that guy wants to talk to you about backstabbing the original backstabber meanwhile 4 other people keep getting and going off to talk and you know it's about them all backstabbing you when you finally come to a conclusion as to what you are going to do and deals are made and you think everything is equitable the turn starts and that guy and the original backstabber both plunge their knives deep into your spine. NOW that's gaming. NOW that's stress filled gaming.

Yes a World War II game with no real battles. I invade, but we bounce, the game is after all called Diplomacy. So it's all about your ability to negotiate with irrational son's of bitches and try your damndest to not get ass raped by someone who last turn was your bestest buddy in the whole wide world. FUCK! Oh yes this is a good game and to think people play this online...why for all that is sweet and innocent...why would you ever play this online. This is a face to face game if ever one was crafted.

Crokinole. The Ultimate is top notch Canadian know how all wrapped up into a simple on the table top piece of furniture...uhhh I mean game. Who else could have brought us the imbecilic "One ass cheek on the chair at all times" rule other than those wacky Canadians? "SO! I'm gonna pick up one of my pucks eh, and i'mma gonna hafta knock one of your pucks the heck outta there eh." Yes a game that truly does feel it was invited on the floor of some isolated cabin during a 38 day blizzard when the fun of group masturbation had wore off (along with certain anatomy skin) and dinner was currently consisting of the group's 2nd pet dog.

I do like some dexterity games! No doubt about that and Crokinole is my favorite of the bunch. Think flicking those cursed little wooden pucks around isn't stressful? Try creating a league. Put together 8 to 10 teams of 2 people. Play a season of games where each team plays the other twice a season for point. Whittle the field down to half teams and start the playoffs...maybe single game elimination or if you are feeling really saucy make it best of 3. Then play the finals. The smack talk, the eyes upon you and the pressure of needing to get this one puck in the 20 hole...you know what's coming by now don't you?.....FUCK!

Voc. Do you even know what game this is? Voc! is Splotter Spielen's game about the found of the Dutch Indies company. Now doesn't that just sound ever bit as thrilling as a game about running for a chair in German politics? Well at least this one isn't 4 hours of endurance. No instead here the big deal mechanic is using a dry erase marker you must navigate your ship....with your eyes closed. So this leaves you wonder where to draw the line so you don’t crash into continents. No worries you faithful shipmates will help you navigate. Trick is they can only speak one word and usually the get to speak one word 2 maybe 3 times per sail. Throw in that chances are good you’ll end up on a boat with someone who doesn’t get which direction North/South/East/West is or better doesn’t know LEFT from RIGHT and gives you the wrong command plunging your boat into the murky depths of the ocean.

For those who haven’t played Voc yet it’s surprising how fast and hard your heart beats when you close those eyes and are hoping you are making a turn at just the right time. What happens when the idiots…I mean shipmates run out of words? Well you are still sailing they just can’t help you anymore…do you press on and hope for the best or stop and pick up next turn from this place? Why the for shits sake he is starting to laugh? Am I doing something good or bad? Am I still on target or did I drag the pen too far to the left wait is that my left or right? Ahhhhhhhhhh FUCK!

Antiquity. Another game by Splotter and so why not lump both these douche bag games right here together then? Here’s a game that let’s you build your civilization, pollute the world, kill off your people all in the name of furthering yourself. Awesome! Now if you are really working it you can even manage to get to a point where you start polluting in other players areas via the water ways so yes you get to destroy the natural habitat that way too. This game kicks so much ass in that sense it’s frigging amazing.

But that does leave you sitting there wondering…who’s gonna be polluting in your back yard and when? Did he manage to man his dump this turn? Cause I really need to dump my pollution in his area cause I don’t have the ability to anywhere around me I’m so damned full up from last turn. Oh but building is done secret so who knows what people have manned. Not to mention other players are not the biggest threat to your existence in this game…YOU are. That’s right Antiquity has built in self kill mechanism so each and every turn is based around calculating if you’ll be able to manage to keep your in the game. Forget playing for victory conditions dammit I’m playing to stay alive. Have I even thought about victory conditions yet? Well I don’t have a cathedral built yet to tell me what my conditions will be. Maybe I should look into…wait a second he just filled in those last two areas of my open space next to my 2nd city! I needed that for my pollution…FUCK!

Well there you go. Those are my picks of damned good games, game that I love to play and want to play again right now but none the less make you go “FUCK.”

What’s that? It’s only five games and I said six in the title? Well yeah that’s right but back off jack off. I was just using a bit of ultra cool alliteration and couldn’t make FIVE work. Does it really make sense to have a list of 6 some things when it’s common to use 5 as a mid/stopping point? Yeah, I don’t think so either. So that’s my reasoning anyway.

Could there be a sixth for me? Hell yeah and it seems to me if I were to extend a few brain cells to think on it the ones that now quickly pop into mind are the card driven two player games like; Twilight Struggle, Hammer of the Scots, Crusader Rex, and of course Hannibal: Rome Vs. Carthage. Still I’m not going to talk about those here and now cause I’m pretty damn sick of this entry already so thanks for sticking with it and getting this far.

Board games? You've got to be kidding right? I mean haven't we all grown up by now? What's the deal here?

In a very careful attempt (and I do mean attempt in the sense that I expect to fail this attempt) to reduce my level of smarminess I write this blog entry with the lofty goal of creating an article that has been created many times before by many other people such as myself who feel they've got a grasp on what gaming is today. This entry is therefore mostly meant for those out there who think board gaming relates to things like Clue, Sorry, Life and yes Monopoly. The same people who consider war gaming can be considered to be Stratego, Risk, Battleship and if you are very well seasoned maybe you know some game called Axis & Allies. The people who think card games all come in two colors and 4 suits. Who believe role playing is something that you do only in bed with you significant other or with your therapist (however chances are good you are doing the same thing with your therapist as with your significant other....damn I think I just failed my attempt already!)

So if you happen to be a reader who is in the know about board gaming that I've written about already then you can skip this entry and move right along to something you've probably already read and therefore just leave my little spot on the web vacant and cold like you found it.

This is for those who stayed and will continue to read on. (There might be a prize nestled somewhere in this post too...of course there probably won't be but you never know.) Yes gentle reader I am here to enlighten you and bring to your base of knowledge the world of designer board games. First however. . .some history.

For pure history buffs the oldest Backgammon board was found in Iran on Jan. 11th, 2007 but that's really going a bit too far back in time for what this article is. So let's skip ahead a bit shall we?

It's given we all know the games I mentioned in the opening of this entry and know that they had their place in time with most kids growing up. Hell occasionally at holidays and what-not one of these will get dragged out and family will sit around the table spending useless hours arguing over little rules that make the game play differently each swearing that their rule book says their way is the official ruling. When in truth no one at the table truly knows the rules (does Free Parking really get you money or just a safe stopping spot?) but somehow the game finally is put under way and someone wins and everyone quietly sings praises that the fucking game is over. FUN TIMES!

Well back in the 1970's and 1980's gaming in the underground (read geeky) circles thrived in America with the advent some cleaver game companies making new games that played much differently than those tired old roll and move games. Avalon Hill simply OWNED the war gaming market but their games were complex and had huge dry rule books that took scholars to get through. Steve Jackson Games began creating lines of small cheap games with little to no components but core rules that played well and offered new gaming experiences to those who wanted more than D&D style role playing. These two however after many expansions found that they would get overly rules heavy and the game would fizzle out. Thus gaming still remained an underground (still read geeky) subculture.

The only real exception in this time period as far as I'm concerned (and in my blog that's ALL that's concerned) was some of the works of Sid Sackson who crafted some classic games that stand up tall against games of all time including the new designer games of today that I'm getting to. Included in this list would be Sleuth, Can't Stop, and one of my top games of all time Acquire.

Never the less the gaming world remained sluggish and dull for many years. Then in 1995 the face of gaming would change as we (and when I say we I mean us gamers) know it forever. Settlers of Catan was created and released. This was a German game that thrived and took a strong foothold in European countries. What made this game so different? Well it stripped away the idea of what a board game was in that the conventional board became modular board made of hexes that could be varied so that the dynamics of each game were different. It brought out a need to make strategic decisions and play in a state of thought provoking moves that would have you trying to benefit yourself but at the same time you had to benefit your opponents too. This game had a rule book that was small and easily understood by those who were not use to the forward thinking of what a "board game" was. Yes simple rules that allowed for so many options each turn, and gaming breathed it's first breath in many years.

So that's what we are talking about here. Designer board games. Games that engage the brain but don't take 7+ hours to play. Games that offer challenge and tough decisions that have to be made but don't bog you down with a rule book that is so thick it could be used as a weapon. Now that we know a bit about that I'm going to take some time here and give you some of the categories of games we play these days and maybe some suggestions as only I can (again it's my blog, if you don't like it shove off!)

Gateway games. This is terminology used by many "seasoned" gamers to describe a game that can be used to expose a non-gamer into the world of designer games. A lot of the "upper crust" gamers don't like these games as they call them too simple or maybe they've got too much luck in them, but I tend to think those people are pretentious pricks anyway. All the games I list here are more easily digested than other games but I'm not going to recommend a game I don't like.

To start off with I'm going to say nearly the entire line of games by Days of Wonder. This company does a fantastic job with their production, rule books are clear and simply with many examples in pictures and even show you a completed setup so you know you are doing things right from the start. The games all have great themes and play quickly. My suggestions from their line for new gamers; Ticket to Ride (with 1910 Expansion), Shadows Over Camelot, Pirate's Cove, and Memoir '44.

In addition to games by DoW other gateway games that are worth looking into given the theme you are looking for are; Mall of Horrors by Asmodee, Carcassonne (another personal favorite), Boomtown (great intro to bidding games) and yes Settlers of Catan.

Now that you've done some research into these games and have an idea of what we are talking about when we say designer board games, let's go into a little more detail and talk about some games types. I will be attempting to keep the examples of games all light to medium weight games that would be good for new gamers.

Tile Laying games. These are games who main mechanic involves usually drawing a tile from some sort of general supply and placing it either on the game board or even to use the drawn tile to create the board.

The above mentioned game Carcassonne is a tile laying game along with Aqcuire. These are radically different games so when thinking of games in the form of "tile laying" understand it's simply a mechanic and the style of game outside the theme will play differently and feel differently. Other examples of some great tile laying games are; Alhambra, Arkadia, Vegas Showdown, Tantrix, Pompei, Oasis, California, Tsuro, Dungeoneer, Drakon, Gheos, Tavula, Squint, Gheos, Cape Horn, Ingenious, Zombies!!!, Mid Evil as well as a slew of railroad themed games that you can easily find.


Auction/Bidding games. Possibly one of my favorite game mechanics but it's true that some people don't like auctions in games. Of course these people are inferior and should be ignored. Auction/bidding games force players to use their resources carefully in gathering the items they need to win the game. Some even throw in the fact that the money one play spends goes to other players so while helping yourself out you are then forced to help your opponents.

Some of my favorite auction/bidding games are; Aladdin's Dragons, Ra, Boomtown, Hollywood Blockbuster, Masterpiece, Vegas Showdown, High Society, Manila, New England, Amun-Re and Ys.

Area Control games. Simply put you win these games by having control of areas of the board. Usually that means majority rule in an area for "control" and the method of getting your pieces to in those areas will vary from game to game and even might be a combination of the other styles mentioned here. To give you an idea of some of these games look up; Mission Red Planet, San Marco, Age of Empires III, Himalaya, Capitol, Tikal, Louis XIV, China, Ys, Tempus, Kahuna and yes I'd even suggest the new takes on Risk which are Risk 2210 and Risk Godstorm...although I prefer Godstorm.

Take That games. These games involved a lot of player interaction. The goal of these games is part to win yourself but also part to beat your opponents down in the getting there. These tend to be VERY light, quick to play, easy to teach, full of yummy randomness and lots of time are card games in fact. Can be great fun just make sure everyone knows it's all just that FUN and feelings won't get hurt. Try out; Hex Hex, Run For Your Life Candyman, Munchkin, Ninja Burger, Family Business, Lunch Money, Mag Blast, Guillotine, Lunch Money, Bang!, Kung Fu Fighting, Brawl, Fightball and the list of these could go on and on and on.

Dexterity games. The main mechanic behind a dexterity game is physical input. That's right these games require you to have some sort of physical action to play the game. Can be loads of fun if you ask me and it's amazing to me how these games scale from kids to adults...everyone wants to play these. Some of my favorites include; Bausack, Crokinole, Hamster Role, Nache Der Magier, Pitch Car, Loopin' Louie, Polarity, and you know what...JENGA!

So there you go, a nice sampling and explanation of what the hell we got going here. There are plenty of other styles of games I could include but that'll get you started. Maybe I'll add more later...maybe not but can't hurt you to check...it can however take up some moments of your life that you will never get back but if you've read this far already WTF right?

Anyway now you know so get out the play some games.

How the West was gamed. Analyzing the field of Western Themed games...I just wanted to use ANAL in the title of a post.

Awhile back I wrote a post about pirate games. I started off by trying to shatter the facade that has been generated (mostly thanks to Disney and Johnny Depp) that pirates are good guys. I listed some of their vile and evil deeds that never gets represented in games and movies to show what a real pirate's life is...then basically said that I would like to see a game like that. The rest of the post went on about how there are precious few good (and I stress the word good here because there's a basically a fuck ton of pirate games made) pirate games out there and my lamenting over this issue.

So today we look at The Wild West and see what the world of gaming has to offer us (in association with a recent geek list I made) with this theme. The first question I ask (as I did in the pirate post) is simply do board games offer a true to life cowboy/western experience? The answer is no. No we don't get to enjoy the hours on end of putting up, riding and maintaining miles of fences on a ranch so the cattle can't get away. I've never had to reshoe my horse in a game. There are a lot of other mundane tasks that people who lived their daily lives in the west faced and none of these are in any of our board games. Thank God for that! Whereas I would like to see a game encompass some of the wilder side of pirates life a good western game should strive hard to steer clear of these daily dull tasks. Instead focusing on the rarer occasions when violence would rear it's ugly head. For the most part that's exactly what's taken place in gaming. In fact I can only think of 1 game that I've played personally that even touches on some of slightly duller moments and that's Way Out West which gives points for having cattle herds...but then again you get to kill off other players herds if they don't have enough cowboys present to protect them. So that theory is only sound for so long.

With this entry to my lovely little blog (you love my blog you know you do...don't lie to yourself anymore) is not going to focus on the idea of "where is the good game" as I fully acknowledge that there are good western games out there but rather just take a gander at the games that are available out there and see what's what.

What games then are we looking at? Not just cowboy games but games that have a western theme of any sort. That being western America in the given time frame that we typically think of when we flash images of Clint Eastwood, Sam Elliot and John Wayne through our minds. This does not have to have anything to do with cowboys...in fact I plan on covering a game that is about the Indians of this era as well. Let me stress that this is not a review of any of these games but rather a quick analysis of the game and my "Guns Up" or "Gun Down" on the game...guess I need a holstered gun cause some of them I've not played yet but deal with it.

Much like my pirate entry this will not be an exhaustive coverage on all games wester/cowboy theme but rather be games that I; know, own, played or are interested in. So your piss ant little "You didn't talk about Blah Blah game" comments are far from welcomed. Other piss ant comments however are fully welcomed.

The ispiration of this post comes from the recent released product by Worthington Games called simply "Cowboys: The Way of the Gun". This game is designed to recreate nothing more than the terror's of the west tromping through town and needing nothing more than to be gunned down by the "good guys." That's right Cowboys recreates just the gun fights of the old west and does so simply, cleanly and without all the mucking about that some of the miniatures games out there likes to throw in that bogs an otherwise good game down. The game has enough detail to it to make it fun. Facing, turn and shoot, fan fire, mounting, killing a mount while cowboy is mounted, angry town folk, line of sight, reload rules and....an action card deck just to shake things up. Well done game worthy of a guns up status by me.

Seems like I'd be remiss to not go ahead and knock out this one. Bang! is a biggie in the world of western games despite it's small physical size. (See size does not matter....grumble grumble.) A great little game with characters and roles and lots of action cards. I think the Dodge City expansion is a necessary component to the game as it adds the green border cards that have to be played a full round before they are active...if they are still there. High Noon and Fist Full of Cards are highly optional I hate the actual Fist Full of Cards cards as it is nothing but a Sheriff loses card and that's just not right. If a person gets resurrected just a round or two before that card (the last card in the deck but shuffling cards can make this happen) then the sheriff has no chance at all. My only major complaint with the game is I don't think I've ever been fortunate enough to play the game where there are all veteran players and new players take quite some time figuring out what they want to do each turn. This can bog the game down quite a bit and your best bet is to kill off the new players quickly so they learn how to the play the game and it moves nicely. Ahhhh the way of the asshole...that means guns up from me.

Which brings me to Bounty Hunger: Shootout at the Saloon.

For those that don’t know this is the western version of Ace of Aces. Seems like these games should have a catch phrase to describe them like “Flip-Book-Game” or something but the creators just never got around to working that up. It’s a very unique gaming system where you roam around the square and inside buildings looking for people to shoot. The genius is that with no board and the game only being played within these books you can only use deductive reasoning to find your opponents. Once you get the system down it’s quick and you can add/remove various amounts of rules and additional elements to craft the game that best suits you and your group. Ace of Aces had a bunch of released (I found one page that chronicles 20 editions of that game alone) and Bounty Hunter was meant to have at least 2 other expansions but it appears they were never printed. So the down fall to this game is that you are limited in your roaming ability. Still a nice fun kill the other guy game. Definitely guns up here.

Bidding, bluffing and screwing over your friends with hot little Indian girls throwing sticks of dynamite. Man what more do you really need in a game? Boomtown brings all this and more to the table. A card game in which the goal is to…well basically just get points and have more of ‘em than anyone else at the end of the game. Not really a unique idea you know…point collecting but it’s a helluva lot of fun and the theme works if you ask me. It could have been theme something different but it wasn’t and it’s included here. Bruno Faidutti is one of my favorite designers and you can feel his signature chaos elements throughout this game. Again it’s a fast game so even if you decide to play it twice you still a probably haven’t lost more than an hour and half at best and that’s if you had to teach the game. I guess it can drag a mite bit if you have some fucking AP player who ever single round of every single auction has to think diligently whether or not to bid up the price one more time when everyone else at the damned table knows for certain he’s going to. You know that guy. Guns up greatness!

I know very little about this game other than it's a card game, based in drafting and set collecting which I like. By Bruno Cathala who was co-designer of the above Boomtown and other games I've enjoyed greatly. It's by Blue Games which is known for crafting (in my mind anyway and where else does it matter really?) short, light fun little card games that have some depth to them. The theme is basically living the real cowboy life as it get riddled with encounters from various events that will take place through the day of trying to get your ranch to a level of success and ultimately bringing you victory. I'm not sure the jury is still out although it's pretty cheap and could easily be tagged onto a game order if I were to do another big one...would really like to score it in a multi-game trade. Obviously holstered guns here.

This game takes a real beating in the general “Designer Game” world but those uber-gamers typically don’t like things like chaos and randomness in a game. This one is full of both and I love it. Chaos from the cards as you never know what’s going to come flying at you from who and randomness from the massive dice pools you put together. You can end up rolling 12-14 D6’s as an attack and have that many rolled back as defense! Further with the damage system as it is you end up rolling quite a hell of a lot of dice and everyone’s only got a maximum of 3 health. You do only 1 point of damage per every multiple of 5 you rolled minus defense. (Example you roll 28 points on damage opponent rolls 14 in defense leaving 14 left over…he takes 2 points of damage unless he can avoid it via a card.) It’s a mini’s game stripped down to the basic move, shoot, power up shoot again…except being as it’s based on a computer game you are never eliminated….you just respawn and have to collect weapons. A really good game, let's see those guns up on this one then.

Way Out West brings the look and feel of euro-gaming to the world of the western front via the mechanics of Martin Wallace. This is a pretty good little game with some interesting rules giving the game it’s own distinct personality. Does it feel all that cowboy like? Only to a minor extent I would say but it does some so that’s something right? The game has effects like raising cattle, buying up stores, holding up the bank, and all kinds of attacks. I like it fair enough but it can drag if you don’t keep on top of the players and make sure they know it’s their turn. 15 minutes after doing nothing someone says “Is it my turn?” and the table responds “FUCK! Yes it’s your turn.” The game itself is made by Warfrog which means fair enough production value and a bunch of little chits to spill all over the board, yep guns up on this one too.

Ace Murder Mysteries is the maker of A Backful of Bullets and it’s as you can deduct…and if you can’t manage to deduct that you don’t need to be playing this game…is a murder mystery. Think of it as one of those “How To Host A Murder” dinner party game type things. I’ve never actually done any of those but this one with it’s western theme is certainly interesting to me and making me wonder about it. I like food, I like party games, I like mur…uhhhh I like food. Yeah that's it I like food and eating food. Interesting take though in that you are trying to solve who shot (and killed) Jesse James in the back. I’d like to see this one unfold but I have heard these games don’t have much replay value even with the changing endings. Keeping 'em holstered here. Have to wait and see.

Just like I would have been amiss for leaving Blackbeard off of the Priatey list so I would be also for leaving Gun Slinger off of this compilation. This game from 1982 by Avalon Hill fits the bill for exactly what AH was delivering game wise ‘back in tha day.’ Tons of details, tons of flavor, tons of rules, tons of sub-rules, and tons of sub-sub-rules. “You can see clearly here in section 9.12.3.3 where the rule book talks about getting a shave from the local barber that if I have the barber start shaving on the left check and not the right I’ll be able to see out of the window for the 2 players turns and therefore have opportunity fire as you pass by. Now if you were coming from the west and it were 3 o’clock the sun would be shining in the window and I’d have no shot at all but it’s obviously only 2:47 at this point in the game and the sun’s too high for that. Whereas if you were coming from the north and kicked the door in you we both would have a shot and you easily would shoot first however I still get to use the barber himself as cover.” A good game? You can say it’s well designed and thought out but don’t be surprised if a conversation like that takes place. Dammit! I just want to play a game, move around and kill people. Guns down baby, sad to say.

Ahhhhhhhhh at last an American Indian themed game in my pile. I own this one and after reading the very unclear rules several times I knew part of the game would be a HUGE bog down. So I check some sources and found where people were playing a variant...it seems like this variant is just what a lot of people are asking for too. Instead of letting players freely choose what cards will be played each hunt have them shuffle the whole damned deck! It's faster (thank God because this game does NOT play in 30 mins.) and mixes the Euro/American game style nicely. WTF? A hybrid game? Yeah that works. Still the game kind of...well let's be nice and say sucks but not horribly so. I think I would hate the game with the original rules as some people do and well am not really sure I'm ever going to play this one again really. It's a remake and the quality is top notch, great art blah blah blah if that gets your rocks off and that's all you need go for it. The game play itself is monotonous and boring. Guns way down on this one.

While the list of games available for this entry can go on and on...I can't, well I could but I don't feel like it. I'll probably add to and fluff up this entry as time goes on but here's what I got's so far. Dig people play 'dem western games.