Purim News: Israel and the Settlements (of Catan)

The Jerusalem Post weighs in with Purim news about Israel and the settlements (and games).

I taught my brother and his kids how to play Ticket to Ride (with the 1910 expansion) today. The kids liked it and I think they will be picking up a copy eventually. One of the kids was ridiculously lucky, picking up tickets near the end of the gsme that fit all of his already existing routes. Meanwhile, my routes were all on the East Coast and the tickets I drew near the end were all on the west coast (and the least points was 12, so I lost 12 from the draw).

The previous shabbat, Nadine, Eitan and Emily (just before Emily gave birth), and I played La Citta. They were not impressed. La Citta is a prime example where the necessity of doing multiple calculations is used as a core mechanism. Calculations is not tactics or strategy, it's busy work.

I still like the game, more than they did.

My Game Industry Database Now Has ...

8385 companies. not counting the 1155 that I know to have closed (or dropped out of the game industry) since I began the list in 2009. 7645 of them have email addresses and didn't tell me to bug off when I sent them the game industry survey the last two times.

Time to to see what happened in 2012 ... I'll keep you posted.

Some Games

I played Thunderstone with Nadine. She picked up six Trainers at the start, while my draws wouldn't let me get more than 1 in my first three turns. I instead sacrificed four Militias to a monster that made all the attacking heroes have -2 strength. That put her ahead in XP and me ahead in tuning my deck. It was a close game (I occasionally noted to her a more optimal play, like when she tried to trash a dagger, overlooking that she had a disease in her hand). Final result was 47 (me) to 42.

Nadine, my mom, and I played Bridge, with Nadine taking over two hands. It is frustrating to forget so many of the nuances of the standard bidding system after not playing for so long. I need to play this regularly, not once every few months.

Last week I played Go with Anne, giving her a two stone starting advantage on a 9x9 board. She had played once or twice before a long time ago, so this was a refresher game. As expected, she played well. The end game had her up a point on the board, but I had captured many more stones. I very nearly lost an entire swath of the board by not paying attention. Another game that deserves real attention, and not a play every few months.

I also played some more No Thanks and Parade, teaching them to new players. Both were enjoyed, but oddly enough Parade went over slightly better, there being more scope for planning, or so I was informed.

I've been enjoying playing Hawaii for several weeks, and so have some people at the JSGC, but no one in the Raanana club liked the game. for some reason.

A Little Bit Like Ajiaco Bogatano and a Lot Like Rummikub

On the many occasions that I have been invited to Abe and Sara's over the years, I always asked her if what she was serving was representative of native Colombian cuisine. It never was, and this became a running joke: Native Colombian challah and hummus! I would say, or Oh, Colombian Coca-Cola!

I told her that one day we were going to have a meal of Colombian food, even if I had to cook it myself. Seeing as this was the last time that we (and some friends) would be sharing a shabbat meal for some time, I decided to cook Colombian cuisine as a going away present.

The problem with cooking Colombian in Israel is that a number of essential Colombian ingredients are not available in Israel, such as plantains, yuca, guascas, and so on. So I either had to choose recipes that didn't require these ingredients or substitute and fudge the flavors. My menu included Ajiaco Bogotano (chicken, corn, and potato soup with garnishes including Aji (cilatnro, pepper, and onion)), empanadas, chorizos, beef skewers, roast "Columbian-style" chicken, guacamole, hummus with roast pepper, and coconut rice, as well as salad and so on.

The results were a true mixture of classic success and failure.

Sara didn't recognize most of the dishes. What's this? she asked. When I said It's a classic Colombian dish, she would say It is? Ok, so apparently the native Colombian didn't recognize anything I cooked as actually Colombian. Luckily it was mostly tasty anyway. Sara recognized the coconut rice as Colombian, but I didn't use enough coconut milk, and she is used to a presentation that includes coconut shavings and the rice served in a ball.

My ajiaco presentation was correct. I brought out garnishes of shredded chicken, capers, sliced avocado, and aji (she didn't recognize aji; also, I couldn't use sour cream, since this was a meat soup), and even before I brought the soup out she asked Oh, did you try to make ajiaco?

Real ajiaco requires three different types of potatoes, at least one is a specific variety that you can't get here, as well as the herb guascas. Real ajiaco is also boiled down to a thick cream, whereas mine was more soupy. And anyway, ajiaco comes from Bogota- which is the capital of Colombia - but not from the region of Colombia from which Sara comes, so she didn't actually grow up eating it. Nevertheless, it's one of her favorite dishes (when she would go to Bogota). And while my soup didn't taste much like Ajiaco Bogotano, it was similar and familiar enough to make her happy.

After dinner we split into two groups. Nadine, Eitan, and Emily played Thunderstone. First plays for Eitan and Emily, who didn't like it that much. Eitan prefers games where the scores are visible during the game so that he knows how to pace his strategy (when to ramp up and when to cash out).

Sara, Anne, and I played Castles of Burgundy. First plays for both of them, third play for me. Both Thunderstone and CoB have long setup times and lots of moving parts, but during play the turns flow fairly smoothly.  CoB is beginning to make more sense to me. It still seems to be one phase too long. Thankfully, by the last phase we were all playing fairly quickly, so it was soon over. In the last phase I completed a large district or two which jumped me ahead some 30 points from where we were all clustered in the scoring.

The next day's lunch was with two families each of whom had four children. I didn't bring games with me, but  two of the kids engaged me in a game of Rummikub. Often, the finagling of the melds are held up by the lack of a few key tiles. The first to draw one of the tiles and recognize what to do with it then goes out. The following player is usually then able to go out immediately after, or at least would be able to if the game were to continue. That's what happened with us.

This was followed by Crazy Eights where the rules changed (not by me) whenever it looked like I had won.

Candle Quest KS Funding Looks Unlikely, But You Should Still Back It

As of right now, a successful funding for our Kickstarter project Candle Quest is unlikely to happen. The momentum isn't there, despite good reviews from GeekDad and some promotions by a few other key bloggers.

However, you should STILL back the project right now, and at least before it's over. Why?

• A fresh boost in project backers could lead to a cascade of new backers. When you back a KS project, it moves up the ranking on the "Popular KS Projects" list. Projects higher on the list receive more attention from visitors to the site, and thus more views and more backing. It's a positive feedback loop.

• Backing the project costs you NOTHING if the project does not fund. This is entirely risk-free. If the project funds, you get what you wanted; if not, you're out nothing.

• The more backers we get for the project, the more we can evaluate what to do next. If we get many backers, even if we don't meet the funding goals, we can take that number to a traditional publisher and show them that there is a proven fan base for the game and they should publish it. Or we can get some other investor willing to help us self-publish.

• Backing the project makes me feel happy, and you want me to feel happy, don't you?

There you go. Don't stop spreading the word, especially to local religious organizations or game clubs. Promote the game on Facebook and Twitter, and post about it on your blog.

The artwork may make the game look like a children's game, but rest assured this is the same great game that is enjoyed by nearly every adult who has ever played it. Candle Quest is a great gateway game: simple to understand, simple choices on each turn, a balance of skill and luck, complex strategy options, lots of player interaction, an evolving story-arc, no player elimination, quick game-play, and appealing to all ages, genders, and religions.

Yehuda

Shabbat Gaming

Last shabbat after dinner I played Anagrams using Snatch-It tiles with Raanana's reigning Anagrams queen Shuli and her friend Janine, also no slouch. I used to think I was good at the game. This time I was surprised that I nearly held my own. I came in third, only a word or two down from Janine, who was a word or two down from Shuli.

After lunch I played Settlers of Catan with Anne, Sarah, and Noa. First play for Anne, astoundingly first or second play for Sarah (who has been playing games for some time now, and first time playing with the correct rules for Noa (who is a Dominion fan but doesn't know much else about gaming).

Experience and a little luck still holds some sway. I carefully promoted trading as a worthwhile endeavor, warned against trading with the leading player, especially when he or she is at 7 points or higher, and encouraged them to gang up on me.

Anne played aggressively, immediately going to block routes or steal board locations that other players needed. She claimed that she just played the best moves for herself and not deliberately to be aggressive. I've heard that before from a lioness ripping the meat out of a zebra. Sarah ended up boxed in with only two spots to which to expand, which can be difficult (though not impossible).

I had only three spots, but I only needed two. A series of 5s rolled early, each of which gave me 2 bricks and 2 wood, allowed me to plunk down an early 9-length Longest Road. I would not typically pick up Longest Road early in the game, but I felt that the large gap I had over the other players made it unlikely that I would get into a road building war with anyone else (and thus let a third player win, which is what usually happens to road builders).

This worked. I was able to keep my longest road to the end of the game and plunk down my fourth city for the win. The other players all had hidden victory point cards and 7, 8, or 9 points. I think they didn't realize that there were only 5 points (and Largest Army) to go around in the development card deck; they might have (should have) built a few more cities first before going for the cards.

This shabbat after dinner I played a few card games with Anne and a few kids at their house after dinner. I taught them how to play Oh Hell. We played to the end and I came in second. Then I taught them how to play Hearts. We played five rounds, no moons shot. We were all in our thirties or so when we had to quit.

Long Distance Antike with Chris and Jim

Last night I played Antike with two friends on a different continent. We didn't play an online board game; we played by video chat with four video cameras and three copies of the game, one at each location.

Chris lives in Oregon. Jim lives in Indiana. I live in Raanana, Israel. This was not our first long distance game. Four years ago, we arranged for Chris and Jim to set up a game at BGG.con so that I could play "at the con" when I wasn't able to make it. This year the internet reception at BGG.con was spotty, and scheduling was difficult, so we delayed the game a few weeks. On that occasion, we played Agricola.

Face to face is best, of course, since you get to see your friends, pass around a beer, and need control only a single board state. Online gaming generally has only text chat, which removes most of the social element from the game. Also, in online games, you are subject to the occasional implementation issue, such as an interface error. Playing by video chat neatly fits into the space between these two options. We could see the other person in a limited way when we looked at the screen, although we generally looked at our own board. We could talk in real time, and even wave at the other players' families in the background when they came in to gawk at us geeks. The copied board states ensured that no errors were made during play.

The game took two and a half hours, including setting up the communications and the boards, resetting the communications to remove some static and mic problems, and a bathroom break. We used Google+ Hangout (although we toyed with using Skype). Chris used two cameras, one for himself and one for the main board.

Pics that Jim's and Chris's wives took are on my Facebook profile.

We played on the Middle Eastern map. I played Arabia (southeast), Jim played Persia (central north), and Chris played Greece (central west). Chris and I had similar strategies of early Know-Hows; Chris beat me to the first one and stayed about a turn and a half in front of me until near the end of the game. We each took one south side of the board. Jim played a heavy expansion strategy, quickly expanding to 15 and then 20 cities across the north, and then he armed himself and created a military front to protect his territories, which bulged in an arc across the entire north of the board and down into the center. However, having missed all of the early Know-How points, he lagged behind in points for most of the game.

I get the feeling that both of them are used to more conflict in the game. In our game, not a single city was conquered. In fact, the only fight that occurred was when I swapped some ships with Jim so that I could place a ship near his city, not to conquer it but to get the second "7 ships" award. Near the end, Chris expanded to get the last "5 city" award, which brought him to withing a point of victory, but I collected the "All eight Know-Hows" (worth a free point) and then got my 14th sea location on my next turn. The game ended 10 to 9 to 6 (or 7).

As usual, this was a great time spent with two amazing people whom I rarely see or interact with face to face. The conversation was game oriented mostly, but the game was really an excuse to get together. Hooray for games, and for video chat, and for good companions.