Rachel is still away for one more week, and my apt is still rented out for one more week. That means I am still going to friends and neighbors for shabbat. Tal was with me this shabbat, along with a friend of hers.
Fri night was at friends who have resisted my enticements into the new games. However, they had a game that someone had given them a long time ago that they couldn't figure out how to play. I agreed to look at it. Turns out to be Rat-a-Tat Cat by Gamewright.
The rules are simple. You have 4 cards face down in front of you, and you only know two when you start the round. Each turn you pick and discard, possibly replacing one of the cards in front of you with the picked card. When you feel like it, you call Gin. According to the real rules, each player then has one more turn, and you all reveal. Add total of cards to score. Low is good. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Blah, I said, without even playing. There is no risk or reward for calling Gin, so once you are ahead, you will probable stay ahead. I decided that if the caller is correct, everyone else gets a 10 point penalty, and if not, then they get a 10 point penalty. I know, you're not supposed to change game rules before you play at least once, but this one seemed too simple not to call.
There are also a few other cards: Peek, Swap, Draw Two. They do what you expect, and if they are in your 4 cards when Gin is called, you have to replace them with random cards from the deck.
I played a round to show them how to play, and then Tal and her friend played several more times.
After this, I taught everyone how to play Opposites, a basic word game where each player has to say an opposite of the previous word, with no repetitions. E.g. light - dark - bright - stupid - smart - dull - sharp - etc...
There is a game involved - time, elimination, etc., but we just went through the exercise.
Sat lunch Tal and her friend played cards, some sort of slap the cards game.
Then in the afternoon, I ended up with ten guests (a surprise - I was expecting three) including kids. Not enough room at the table, so I taught some how to play Dvonn, which was a hit. Simultaneously, Tal went off and taught a few of them My Game Prototype #1, which was a bigger hit. Eventually I heard Tal's friend teaching one of the other kids who had been playing Dvonn. That's a third generation player for my game, already. Makes me happy.
Yehuda
Showing posts with label dvonn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dvonn. Show all posts
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Weekend Gaming
My father is weak, which was expected, but he is also losing weight, which is bad. Unless something changes, back to the emergency room on Sunday.
Gaming over the weekend with David, Sharon, and kids went well. Their house is the local teen hangout. Most of the teens who hang out also know me and know I'm the game man. So a few of them joined in the games.
Before I forget, David and Sharon had dinner guests on Friday night who don't know any of the new games. They were describing the problems they had while playing Monopoly. Apparently, the husband always plays viciously. He believes that alliances, promises, and deals which are not part of the game rules can be broken at will. For instance, the "we won't attack each other for three turns" rule in Risk is something that he will make with another player and then break at his own convenience, not waiting three rounds. His defense of this horrific breach of etiquette is a) his opponents should figure it out, and if not, they will learn fast, and b) people shouldn't take games too seriously.
I argued that he should at least tell people before the game begins that this is the way that he plays, to no avail. My arguments that his style of play is a effectively a set of rules, and that others may want to play by different rules, didn't help. As far as he is concerned, if they don't like the way he plays, they shouldn't play! And stop taking games too seriously! I suggested to them to try Settlers of Catan, which they might.
After dinner, I started out with a game of Dvonn with one of the teenage guests, while we waited for the rest of the players to coalesce (they were walking the dog). Ari has been to my game group once before; he is a sharp kid, but not too happy with being in the army. I am happy to give him some opportunity to get his mind off of it.
Unfortunately, although he picked up the rules, I happened to win with a wipeout. I reminded him that my understanding of the game's tactics is still so infantile that this is more likely the result of chance than any skill on my part.
The party returned and I brought out my game prototype #1. It was a hit - we played four-player four times in a row. The next day, Galit (their daughter) played with Tal (my daughter) two-player two times, and then we played two more four-player games. Eight plays in one weekend.
The family/friends all thought that one small part of my game was not to their liking, so we tried changing it a bit. I have to say that I still like the current design best. They also managed to play the auction in the game in a way I had not at all expected nor experienced in my previous plays. It still played great; it was amusing to see this after I had already played the game about fifty times.
I also introduced to them For Sale, one of the games which Chris Brooks brought me. They enjoyed it, and we played four times. I never won once, nor came close. I'm still not sure why. After that I taught them how to play Geschenkt using the For Sale houses as cards (1-30), six players, and eight tokens each. We played four games of this, too. Geschenkt has a great little mechanic that can be played with almost any set of cards and tokens, anywhere. It is very adaptable.
I was actually played out with all of these short games. I said my goodbyes, and went back to my parents to rest.
Yehuda
Gaming over the weekend with David, Sharon, and kids went well. Their house is the local teen hangout. Most of the teens who hang out also know me and know I'm the game man. So a few of them joined in the games.
Before I forget, David and Sharon had dinner guests on Friday night who don't know any of the new games. They were describing the problems they had while playing Monopoly. Apparently, the husband always plays viciously. He believes that alliances, promises, and deals which are not part of the game rules can be broken at will. For instance, the "we won't attack each other for three turns" rule in Risk is something that he will make with another player and then break at his own convenience, not waiting three rounds. His defense of this horrific breach of etiquette is a) his opponents should figure it out, and if not, they will learn fast, and b) people shouldn't take games too seriously.
I argued that he should at least tell people before the game begins that this is the way that he plays, to no avail. My arguments that his style of play is a effectively a set of rules, and that others may want to play by different rules, didn't help. As far as he is concerned, if they don't like the way he plays, they shouldn't play! And stop taking games too seriously! I suggested to them to try Settlers of Catan, which they might.
After dinner, I started out with a game of Dvonn with one of the teenage guests, while we waited for the rest of the players to coalesce (they were walking the dog). Ari has been to my game group once before; he is a sharp kid, but not too happy with being in the army. I am happy to give him some opportunity to get his mind off of it.
Unfortunately, although he picked up the rules, I happened to win with a wipeout. I reminded him that my understanding of the game's tactics is still so infantile that this is more likely the result of chance than any skill on my part.
The party returned and I brought out my game prototype #1. It was a hit - we played four-player four times in a row. The next day, Galit (their daughter) played with Tal (my daughter) two-player two times, and then we played two more four-player games. Eight plays in one weekend.
The family/friends all thought that one small part of my game was not to their liking, so we tried changing it a bit. I have to say that I still like the current design best. They also managed to play the auction in the game in a way I had not at all expected nor experienced in my previous plays. It still played great; it was amusing to see this after I had already played the game about fifty times.
I also introduced to them For Sale, one of the games which Chris Brooks brought me. They enjoyed it, and we played four times. I never won once, nor came close. I'm still not sure why. After that I taught them how to play Geschenkt using the For Sale houses as cards (1-30), six players, and eight tokens each. We played four games of this, too. Geschenkt has a great little mechanic that can be played with almost any set of cards and tokens, anywhere. It is very adaptable.
I was actually played out with all of these short games. I said my goodbyes, and went back to my parents to rest.
Yehuda
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Dvonn
Dvonn surprised me as being one of those games that is inscrutable the first time you play it, but makes some basic sense after several plays.
During the first part of the game you are jockeying to put your pieces down in positions to control the red pieces. That means: place pieces that can directly jump onto the red pieces. Place pieces that can jump onto your opponents pieces that can do the same. Place pieces that, after one jump can jump on the red pieces. Etc... The more control you establish, the better.
During the second half, you have to keep control over different areas of the board. A single move by your opponent can do several things: prevent you from moving a piece that could have landed on his; capture a piece you needed for control; and threaten a new area with the resulting piece. This is a lot to absorb, and the number of potential moves at any time except the very end is large, usually more than chess.
This is a good thing. I think with repeated plays, one can get much better at the game. In fact, my first few plays I felt that the whole game was almost random. If I had given up then, I would have missed a whole depth of understanding. This patches in with the discussion I am having with Jeremy Avery on Gamefest.
Anyway, I won once, and then Saarya won once. As we played, the moves became more deliberate, and the zones of control began to glow in our heads, like the patterns in the newspaper in the movie "A Beautiful Mind", or like a game of Go to an experienced player.
Sometimes you can gain something special if you persevere.
Yehuda
During the first part of the game you are jockeying to put your pieces down in positions to control the red pieces. That means: place pieces that can directly jump onto the red pieces. Place pieces that can jump onto your opponents pieces that can do the same. Place pieces that, after one jump can jump on the red pieces. Etc... The more control you establish, the better.
During the second half, you have to keep control over different areas of the board. A single move by your opponent can do several things: prevent you from moving a piece that could have landed on his; capture a piece you needed for control; and threaten a new area with the resulting piece. This is a lot to absorb, and the number of potential moves at any time except the very end is large, usually more than chess.
This is a good thing. I think with repeated plays, one can get much better at the game. In fact, my first few plays I felt that the whole game was almost random. If I had given up then, I would have missed a whole depth of understanding. This patches in with the discussion I am having with Jeremy Avery on Gamefest.
Anyway, I won once, and then Saarya won once. As we played, the moves became more deliberate, and the zones of control began to glow in our heads, like the patterns in the newspaper in the movie "A Beautiful Mind", or like a game of Go to an experienced player.
Sometimes you can gain something special if you persevere.
Yehuda
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Dvonn x 2, Puerto Rico
Two games of Dvonn with Saarya. The first game I cornered Saarya into a forced move and then captured his last piece. The second game I cornered Saarya into a forced move and jumped one of his last pieces, but his remaining pieces were still two disks higher than mine. 1 - 1
Dvonn continues to baffle me. As my friend David complained about a few of my own game designs, there are just too many options at certain points during the game. The worst case of this is while laying pieces. Yeah, ok, try to ensure control of the red pieces, try to have the most liberties. Is there really anything more to it? About halfway through the laying phase we just dump the rest of our pieces on the board.
The capture phase is much more interesting, primarily due to the sequence of capturing a red piece and then jumping it across the board, thereby eliminating half of the pieces on the board. If this gives you the most remaining stacks, there are good odds that you will then win. My basic strategy is to ensure that this is so.
One game of Puerto Rico with Rachel. What a fiasco. I took Hacienda on my first move, and drew 3 corns and a tobacco. There I was, producing coffee, tobacco and five corns, with Wharf, while she was producing 2 indigos, 2 sugars and a corn. I thought this game was so wrapped up in my favor that I offered to start again, midgame. She obstinately decided to continue.
Somehow, I still don't know how, she managed to buy two big buildings while I bought none. She finagled, forced my goods onto ships, left the trading house blocked, etc. Everything. Perfectly. And she beat me, not by a few points, but 62 to 50. Youch!
I was going to say that I am starting to get tired of Hacienda, since, whether it gives you good luck or bad luck, it is still luck, and therefore not so interesting. However, even with the good luck in this game I still didn't win, so perhaps its influence isn't as strong as I thought. I'll leave it in a while longer.
I borrowed the game Starfarers of Catan from a neighbor, and am waiting to play if the opportunity arises. Chris Farrel gives it a 10, while most others think of it as overly long and finicky. It certainly is odd looking, but interesting looking nonetheless.
What makes me most nervous about the game is the "encounter" that occurs every two turns, which seems like a) it will slow the game down to excruciating speed, both by interrupting the game play and by draining players of resource cards, b) gives needlessly random results, no matter what you do, and c) always pits you against the player on your left, which seems to be a poor design (random, in this case, would actually make more sense).
We'll just have to see.
Yehuda
Dvonn continues to baffle me. As my friend David complained about a few of my own game designs, there are just too many options at certain points during the game. The worst case of this is while laying pieces. Yeah, ok, try to ensure control of the red pieces, try to have the most liberties. Is there really anything more to it? About halfway through the laying phase we just dump the rest of our pieces on the board.
The capture phase is much more interesting, primarily due to the sequence of capturing a red piece and then jumping it across the board, thereby eliminating half of the pieces on the board. If this gives you the most remaining stacks, there are good odds that you will then win. My basic strategy is to ensure that this is so.
One game of Puerto Rico with Rachel. What a fiasco. I took Hacienda on my first move, and drew 3 corns and a tobacco. There I was, producing coffee, tobacco and five corns, with Wharf, while she was producing 2 indigos, 2 sugars and a corn. I thought this game was so wrapped up in my favor that I offered to start again, midgame. She obstinately decided to continue.
Somehow, I still don't know how, she managed to buy two big buildings while I bought none. She finagled, forced my goods onto ships, left the trading house blocked, etc. Everything. Perfectly. And she beat me, not by a few points, but 62 to 50. Youch!
I was going to say that I am starting to get tired of Hacienda, since, whether it gives you good luck or bad luck, it is still luck, and therefore not so interesting. However, even with the good luck in this game I still didn't win, so perhaps its influence isn't as strong as I thought. I'll leave it in a while longer.
I borrowed the game Starfarers of Catan from a neighbor, and am waiting to play if the opportunity arises. Chris Farrel gives it a 10, while most others think of it as overly long and finicky. It certainly is odd looking, but interesting looking nonetheless.
What makes me most nervous about the game is the "encounter" that occurs every two turns, which seems like a) it will slow the game down to excruciating speed, both by interrupting the game play and by draining players of resource cards, b) gives needlessly random results, no matter what you do, and c) always pits you against the player on your left, which seems to be a poor design (random, in this case, would actually make more sense).
We'll just have to see.
Yehuda
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Dvonn and Game Patterns
Following my several games of Go, I decided to play several games of Dvonn.
There is something about playing several games of a quick abstract that one game can't give you. Within the core of any game are the "patterns".
The patterns in Chess have practically all been named: the Schwarkplof-Flarkstein opening, the Baggins-Balrog defense (I'm making this up, but you get the idea).
In Go, you have the atari, ko, komi, etc... whose very definitions explain the patterns in the game.
These patterns exist in most games, I assume, from Candyland to Puerto Rico to Monopoly.
Dvonn seemed like a fairly random game when I first started, after playing a single game on several occasions. Sitting down to play several games at once, I begin to see some of the patterns emerge.
Dvonn is a game with an elongated hexagon of circles, as follows:
..o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o..
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
..o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o..
Each player takes 23 disks, either white or black. The white player also takes 2 red disks, and the black player 1 red disk. Players alternate placing disks on the board one at a time, starting with the red disks (phase 1). Then (phase 2) players alternate moving any stack of disks (stack being one or more disks on top of each other). You can only move stacks that have your color on top. Each stack moves exactly the number of spaces as it has pieces in the stack. Each move must land on another stack. You cannot move pieces surrounded on all six sides by other pieces. Any stack that cannot trace a path to a red disk is removed from the game - typically this means that a whole lot of pieces are removed from the game as soon as the sole connecting piece is moved.
In the end, after no legal moves are possible, the player's remaining stacks are combined, and the higher total wins.
Playing several games, the patterns in the second half of the game start to emerge. The capture and recapture of large stacks by single pieces. The isolation and destruction of half the board by removing the connecting piece. The capture and movement of the red pieces. Most importantly, that the game is not going to continue until all pieces have been moved, but is likely to end quickly after several pieces are removed from play. The object seems to be to to wipe out all possible moves once you have an advantageous position.
The patterns for placing disks in the first half of the game still seem elusive. Of course, you want plenty of disks near the red ones and plenty near the outside so as to have more possible choices, and so that you can ensure that your pieces are not wiped out before you are ready. But it still seems highly chaotic.
The only thing that helps me is to place one of the red stones right next to one of the others. By reducing the playing area to two places, instead of three, I can contain the possible moves somewhat more in my head.
There is a game which I am working on that starts with 37 pieces distributed randomly on a hexagonal grid. Afterwards, each player alternate to combine any two pieces with various results. I tried this out on my friend and his immediate remark is that it felt that the opening moves were too random. I wonder if playing several games would take away that feeling after the patterns emerge.
Yehuda
There is something about playing several games of a quick abstract that one game can't give you. Within the core of any game are the "patterns".
The patterns in Chess have practically all been named: the Schwarkplof-Flarkstein opening, the Baggins-Balrog defense (I'm making this up, but you get the idea).
In Go, you have the atari, ko, komi, etc... whose very definitions explain the patterns in the game.
These patterns exist in most games, I assume, from Candyland to Puerto Rico to Monopoly.
Dvonn seemed like a fairly random game when I first started, after playing a single game on several occasions. Sitting down to play several games at once, I begin to see some of the patterns emerge.
Dvonn is a game with an elongated hexagon of circles, as follows:
..o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o..
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
..o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o..
Each player takes 23 disks, either white or black. The white player also takes 2 red disks, and the black player 1 red disk. Players alternate placing disks on the board one at a time, starting with the red disks (phase 1). Then (phase 2) players alternate moving any stack of disks (stack being one or more disks on top of each other). You can only move stacks that have your color on top. Each stack moves exactly the number of spaces as it has pieces in the stack. Each move must land on another stack. You cannot move pieces surrounded on all six sides by other pieces. Any stack that cannot trace a path to a red disk is removed from the game - typically this means that a whole lot of pieces are removed from the game as soon as the sole connecting piece is moved.
In the end, after no legal moves are possible, the player's remaining stacks are combined, and the higher total wins.
Playing several games, the patterns in the second half of the game start to emerge. The capture and recapture of large stacks by single pieces. The isolation and destruction of half the board by removing the connecting piece. The capture and movement of the red pieces. Most importantly, that the game is not going to continue until all pieces have been moved, but is likely to end quickly after several pieces are removed from play. The object seems to be to to wipe out all possible moves once you have an advantageous position.
The patterns for placing disks in the first half of the game still seem elusive. Of course, you want plenty of disks near the red ones and plenty near the outside so as to have more possible choices, and so that you can ensure that your pieces are not wiped out before you are ready. But it still seems highly chaotic.
The only thing that helps me is to place one of the red stones right next to one of the others. By reducing the playing area to two places, instead of three, I can contain the possible moves somewhat more in my head.
There is a game which I am working on that starts with 37 pieces distributed randomly on a hexagonal grid. Afterwards, each player alternate to combine any two pieces with various results. I tried this out on my friend and his immediate remark is that it felt that the opening moves were too random. I wonder if playing several games would take away that feeling after the patterns emerge.
Yehuda
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Rules mistakes, games played.
OK, it turns out that I'm not the best rules reader. Someone else should really check me.
Traumfabrik: Reading more carefully, it seems that the extra indivisible amount of contracts ends up in the middle of the board, and not on each particular space. These extra contracts are added to and divided along with the next bid.
Geschenkt: The original rule was that the player who wins the bid starts bidding on the next card. We all seemed to think that this is a terrible idea, because if you take a card with no tokens, and you have no tokens, you must take all of the remaining cards in the game. Well someone on BGG pointed out the should-have-been-obvious to me: This is impossible. The first player to play has 11 tokens. Every time you take a card, if you weren't the one that flipped it, it must have at least one token on it. Ergo, you will always have at least one token to play.
Last Wed's session report on my website, as usual.
Thursday I played my usual 2 player PR with expansion buildings with my wife, Rachel. Some buildings are just included standard, now: Large Business (privilege of Captain and Builder) instead of Harbor; Small Wharf, or something equivalent, instead of Large Warehouse; Small Fashion District (sell indigo at +2), or equiv, instead of Construction Hut; also replacements for University and Office, whatever comes up. Very typical buildings include Large General Production Building (8/3, produce two of anything with corresponding plantations), Exchange House (swap barrels with Trading House at the ed of the Trader phase (a good answer to LGPB, but somewhat powerful in 2 player)), Surveyor's House (2/1 choose any plantation from supply, instead of turned up one), plus a few variant large buildings (vps for building types, or plantation types, of empty spaces or circles, etc...)
Shabbat I played.
- Traumfabrik twice, this time with the correct rules. The first time intruducing my daughter aged 11 and her friend and my mom to the game. They enjoyed it. The second time introducing my friend and several other guys in their teens. They also liked it.
- Anagrams, twice. Tough games, playing with my friend, who won the National Scrabble tournament, once. I lost the first game, closely, but won the second game even more closely (something like 49 to 47 tiles). While he has a ridiculously larger vocabulary for dumb words (like eau, aquae, and zoea), I am a hair quicker on the draw, better prepare myself for particular letters I am on the lookout for, and not bad at anagramming, myself.
- Dvonn. First time play, I was wondering if it would suffer from the same problem that I have with the games I tend to design, namely that there are so many choices that it seems random. Fortunately, while it did seem a little random, that was more because I had no idea what I was doing, rather than that I had too many choices. Nevertheless, any game where all pieces are essentially shared, is very hard to wrap your brain around. For the rules, see BGG.
We place our pieces, and I thought I was doing better since I had more pieces on the outside and therefore more liberty and choices. It didn't help, as gradually all of my pieces were either recaptured or simply removed from the board. I had a wipeout at the end, with no pieces left. Ugh.
- Torres. My friend tried it, and surprisingly to me, didn't really like it.
Yehuda
Traumfabrik: Reading more carefully, it seems that the extra indivisible amount of contracts ends up in the middle of the board, and not on each particular space. These extra contracts are added to and divided along with the next bid.
Geschenkt: The original rule was that the player who wins the bid starts bidding on the next card. We all seemed to think that this is a terrible idea, because if you take a card with no tokens, and you have no tokens, you must take all of the remaining cards in the game. Well someone on BGG pointed out the should-have-been-obvious to me: This is impossible. The first player to play has 11 tokens. Every time you take a card, if you weren't the one that flipped it, it must have at least one token on it. Ergo, you will always have at least one token to play.
Last Wed's session report on my website, as usual.
Thursday I played my usual 2 player PR with expansion buildings with my wife, Rachel. Some buildings are just included standard, now: Large Business (privilege of Captain and Builder) instead of Harbor; Small Wharf, or something equivalent, instead of Large Warehouse; Small Fashion District (sell indigo at +2), or equiv, instead of Construction Hut; also replacements for University and Office, whatever comes up. Very typical buildings include Large General Production Building (8/3, produce two of anything with corresponding plantations), Exchange House (swap barrels with Trading House at the ed of the Trader phase (a good answer to LGPB, but somewhat powerful in 2 player)), Surveyor's House (2/1 choose any plantation from supply, instead of turned up one), plus a few variant large buildings (vps for building types, or plantation types, of empty spaces or circles, etc...)
Shabbat I played.
- Traumfabrik twice, this time with the correct rules. The first time intruducing my daughter aged 11 and her friend and my mom to the game. They enjoyed it. The second time introducing my friend and several other guys in their teens. They also liked it.
- Anagrams, twice. Tough games, playing with my friend, who won the National Scrabble tournament, once. I lost the first game, closely, but won the second game even more closely (something like 49 to 47 tiles). While he has a ridiculously larger vocabulary for dumb words (like eau, aquae, and zoea), I am a hair quicker on the draw, better prepare myself for particular letters I am on the lookout for, and not bad at anagramming, myself.
- Dvonn. First time play, I was wondering if it would suffer from the same problem that I have with the games I tend to design, namely that there are so many choices that it seems random. Fortunately, while it did seem a little random, that was more because I had no idea what I was doing, rather than that I had too many choices. Nevertheless, any game where all pieces are essentially shared, is very hard to wrap your brain around. For the rules, see BGG.
We place our pieces, and I thought I was doing better since I had more pieces on the outside and therefore more liberty and choices. It didn't help, as gradually all of my pieces were either recaptured or simply removed from the board. I had a wipeout at the end, with no pieces left. Ugh.
- Torres. My friend tried it, and surprisingly to me, didn't really like it.
Yehuda
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