Gee, this article in the latest Escapist magazine sounds familiar. Oh yes, because it covers the same topics and presents the same opinions that I've been covering and presenting this last month. Only, it covers them from an insider's perspective.
Summary: video games are solved, not played, and don't present the same strategy that games like Chess do. In so doing, they are not geared for more mature players.
Yehuda
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Linkety Link
Nothing special.
My friends Yitzchak and Avigayil and family are visiting Israel and he and kids will be coming to the game group tomorrow evening ... I just responded to an interview request about my Web 3.0 article. I'm working on two other tech related articles ... I just posted today's Gone Gaming article.
Links:
Uganda has produced an AIDS prevention board game: "Throw a '1' and you will be advised to 'always wear a condom if you have to have sex' before moving forward two spaces." I was all set to make fun of this, but it turns out that Uganda is one of the few African nations that is actually doing a good job of reducing the number of people infected with AIDS.
America vs the World blog has created a cute political redrawing of the Risk board. Not that I agree with the politics of the site, necessarily.
And yesterday's Miss Manners dealt with poor board game etiquette.
Yehuda
My friends Yitzchak and Avigayil and family are visiting Israel and he and kids will be coming to the game group tomorrow evening ... I just responded to an interview request about my Web 3.0 article. I'm working on two other tech related articles ... I just posted today's Gone Gaming article.
Links:
Uganda has produced an AIDS prevention board game: "Throw a '1' and you will be advised to 'always wear a condom if you have to have sex' before moving forward two spaces." I was all set to make fun of this, but it turns out that Uganda is one of the few African nations that is actually doing a good job of reducing the number of people infected with AIDS.
America vs the World blog has created a cute political redrawing of the Risk board. Not that I agree with the politics of the site, necessarily.
And yesterday's Miss Manners dealt with poor board game etiquette.
Yehuda
Monday, July 03, 2006
The war on Israel via video games
I must at least mention this one:
The comments on the post get progressively nasty toward Israel as they go. I have learned not to argue with these people in open forums. Update: That was quick. The comments have now all been deleted. A sample of the vitriol can be found at the source of the above article, here. Note that if these comments also get deleted, we can go to that article's source, which is an arab paper.
Yehuda
The winner of last year's Electronic Sports World Cup has refused to play this year because he was drawn to play against an Israeli gamer. Badr Hakeem, the 21-year-old champ from Saudi Arabia, cited current events for his reasoning.
"Due to our stand against the Israeli aggression and occupation of Palestine," he said, "I raised my voice and said there was no way I was going to play this guy."
The comments on the post get progressively nasty toward Israel as they go. I have learned not to argue with these people in open forums. Update: That was quick. The comments have now all been deleted. A sample of the vitriol can be found at the source of the above article, here. Note that if these comments also get deleted, we can go to that article's source, which is an arab paper.
Yehuda
Some Israeli and Jerusalem Gaming News
1. A new Chess club is opening in Jerusalem. Their website is here. Their first meeting is today at at 15.45 in the Matnas on Emek Refa'im 12 in the German Colony.
2. A Scrabble tournament in Tel Aviv:
4. Go meets on the first Tuesday of every month (tomorrow night) in Jerusalem from 19.30+ Cafe Rimon, middle of Lunz Street, a pedestrian link between Ben-Yehuda and Yaffo. (City Centre). Contact person: Uli (Sam) Freed, 054-4925747.
5. ICON 2006, the Israeli sci-fi and roleplaying convention is already scheduled for the entire week of Hol Hamoed Sukkot, 9 - 13 October. As usual, the JSGC will be having a games day on one of those days.
Yehuda
2. A Scrabble tournament in Tel Aviv:
Just over two weeks to go before the Tel Aviv Scrabble Club hosts its3. The annual Diplomacy Convention DipCon2006 is being planned. For further details contact Sharon Prober.
first ever open Scrabble tournament. The tournament will take place on Wednesday, July 19th.
Players in the event will play in different divisions (according to level of play) one division consists almost exclusively of beginners and the experts among you will feel right at home in the expert division.
For further details.
The number of places in limited so please register as soon as you know whether you can come. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email or phone at 077-8844013 (h) / 09-7781976 (w).
4. Go meets on the first Tuesday of every month (tomorrow night) in Jerusalem from 19.30+ Cafe Rimon, middle of Lunz Street, a pedestrian link between Ben-Yehuda and Yaffo. (City Centre). Contact person: Uli (Sam) Freed, 054-4925747.
5. ICON 2006, the Israeli sci-fi and roleplaying convention is already scheduled for the entire week of Hol Hamoed Sukkot, 9 - 13 October. As usual, the JSGC will be having a games day on one of those days.
Yehuda
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Gaming: Havoc with Tal
Tal and I played 2-player Havoc, which she won by a hair because I played my very last card foolishly.
I usually do some early attacking and then Tal wins by cleaning up at the end. This time I decided to do some saving up as well. The first battle wasn't fought at all, and many others were barely fought only after full recruitment. That meant that we held more than half the deck in our hands for some of the game.
At one point I had six 8's and six 5's. Tal was working the whole game for a straight flush and she needed one of those 5's. Well, I started playing and losing battles 2, 3, and 4. Then I caught up by taking 6, 7, and 8. On battle 8 I threw down the last 5 as my 6th card, even though I didn't need to, and Tal responded with a dog just to snatch it up and complete here straight flush. She won the last battle. Final score: 36 to 35.
Havoc for two players is funny, because the values of the battles are different than what you would expect. Battles 5 and 7 are the most lucrative, whereas battles 8 and 9 are only middling.
Posting Frequency
I might be posting a mite less frequently (or I might not) as I'm once again working on some longer posts, including two more web 2.0 posts and two longish game posts on relatively basic topics. I'll still get something out every day, most likely, but maybe not several times a day.
Yehuda
I usually do some early attacking and then Tal wins by cleaning up at the end. This time I decided to do some saving up as well. The first battle wasn't fought at all, and many others were barely fought only after full recruitment. That meant that we held more than half the deck in our hands for some of the game.
At one point I had six 8's and six 5's. Tal was working the whole game for a straight flush and she needed one of those 5's. Well, I started playing and losing battles 2, 3, and 4. Then I caught up by taking 6, 7, and 8. On battle 8 I threw down the last 5 as my 6th card, even though I didn't need to, and Tal responded with a dog just to snatch it up and complete here straight flush. She won the last battle. Final score: 36 to 35.
Havoc for two players is funny, because the values of the battles are different than what you would expect. Battles 5 and 7 are the most lucrative, whereas battles 8 and 9 are only middling.
Posting Frequency
I might be posting a mite less frequently (or I might not) as I'm once again working on some longer posts, including two more web 2.0 posts and two longish game posts on relatively basic topics. I'll still get something out every day, most likely, but maybe not several times a day.
Yehuda
June Gaming at the JSGC
The following games were played at the Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club in June. This list doesn't include my own personal plays outside the group:
Amun-Re - The game that nobody doesn't like, and some like quite a lot. When no one can agree on what to play, this one comes out. Second tier Reiner Knizia game; very good, and even good for intelligent newbies.
Beyond Balderdash - We tried to play this party game one night, but circumstances prevented us from finishing it. We will likely try again.
Bridge x 2 - We have a few beginner bridge players who like to play this game if there are exactly four bridge players around when the evening begins to close.
Caylus - This sprawling heavy game is full of lots of good gameplay, but likely to not hit the table too many more times: very long, very fiddly, not enough return for most people. I still like it, but I recognize its limitations.
Cosmic Encounter x 2 - A group favorite that only gets to the table when my brother brings comes to the group. We play Mayfair's Cosmic and More Cosmic, with no moons or lucre.
Dvonn - A very good but cerebral two-player quick abstract with a lot of strategy and tactics. Yinsh tends to get pulled out slightly more often, however.
Fluxx x 2 - The silly players in our group like this quick and chaotic card game. I loathe it.
Goldland - An ok medium-length board game whose main mechanic is counting out steps to the resources you need to acquire and getting them before others do. Nothing brilliant.
Havoc x 6 - A good light card game for 2 to 6 players. A little long for its weight, but can be truncated.
Hearts x 2 - Regular hearts is fairly luck driven, especially for five players. Team hearts is less so, and quite good.
Lift Off x 2 - A real-time game of flipping through your deck to drop cards as fast as possible. I don't have much experience with these type of games, so I can't compare; this one is ok.
Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation x 3 - A surprisingly good quick two-player game. Mechanics are like Stratego, but each piece has a special ability and you play war with cards as well.
Magic: the Gathering x 3 - Still a classic, I love to play this when I have an opponent at the group. We always Rochester draft from a random selection of cards.
Modern Art - A dry pure auction game. Easy to learn, and fun to play, but gets repetitive and predictable, and bad luck if you have no double auction cards. Very much enjoyed by some of our players.
New England - I didn't play this, but I heard some good reactions.
Power Grid - An excellent longish game for 2 to 6 players, with mechanics that are repetitive but don't feel like it, for some reason. Liked by most of our group.
Santiago - A truly great game for 3 or 4 players, whose rules are very elegant and have just the right amount of interaction, strategy, and tactics. Others in the group also enjoy it.
Scotland Yard - A game that has past its time, in my opinion. Revisited by some of our group members the day that I was away.
Shadows Over Camelot - Loved by our group as a new idea in gaming, collaborative play against the board with a possible traitor. I find the game play dull, but the traitor aspect enjoyable.
Torres - A very good medium game for 2 to 4 players. We play with personal sets of cards, where you draw 3 and pick 1, replacing the 2 back on the top or bottom of the pile. Cerebral and mathematical. Some of the group find it dry.
Ys - A good bidding/area-control game of handling too many scoring tracks. Like Alladin's Dragons, but with less theme, if that were possible.
Yehuda
Amun-Re - The game that nobody doesn't like, and some like quite a lot. When no one can agree on what to play, this one comes out. Second tier Reiner Knizia game; very good, and even good for intelligent newbies.
Beyond Balderdash - We tried to play this party game one night, but circumstances prevented us from finishing it. We will likely try again.
Bridge x 2 - We have a few beginner bridge players who like to play this game if there are exactly four bridge players around when the evening begins to close.
Caylus - This sprawling heavy game is full of lots of good gameplay, but likely to not hit the table too many more times: very long, very fiddly, not enough return for most people. I still like it, but I recognize its limitations.
Cosmic Encounter x 2 - A group favorite that only gets to the table when my brother brings comes to the group. We play Mayfair's Cosmic and More Cosmic, with no moons or lucre.
Dvonn - A very good but cerebral two-player quick abstract with a lot of strategy and tactics. Yinsh tends to get pulled out slightly more often, however.
Fluxx x 2 - The silly players in our group like this quick and chaotic card game. I loathe it.
Goldland - An ok medium-length board game whose main mechanic is counting out steps to the resources you need to acquire and getting them before others do. Nothing brilliant.
Havoc x 6 - A good light card game for 2 to 6 players. A little long for its weight, but can be truncated.
Hearts x 2 - Regular hearts is fairly luck driven, especially for five players. Team hearts is less so, and quite good.
Lift Off x 2 - A real-time game of flipping through your deck to drop cards as fast as possible. I don't have much experience with these type of games, so I can't compare; this one is ok.
Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation x 3 - A surprisingly good quick two-player game. Mechanics are like Stratego, but each piece has a special ability and you play war with cards as well.
Magic: the Gathering x 3 - Still a classic, I love to play this when I have an opponent at the group. We always Rochester draft from a random selection of cards.
Modern Art - A dry pure auction game. Easy to learn, and fun to play, but gets repetitive and predictable, and bad luck if you have no double auction cards. Very much enjoyed by some of our players.
New England - I didn't play this, but I heard some good reactions.
Power Grid - An excellent longish game for 2 to 6 players, with mechanics that are repetitive but don't feel like it, for some reason. Liked by most of our group.
Santiago - A truly great game for 3 or 4 players, whose rules are very elegant and have just the right amount of interaction, strategy, and tactics. Others in the group also enjoy it.
Scotland Yard - A game that has past its time, in my opinion. Revisited by some of our group members the day that I was away.
Shadows Over Camelot - Loved by our group as a new idea in gaming, collaborative play against the board with a possible traitor. I find the game play dull, but the traitor aspect enjoyable.
Torres - A very good medium game for 2 to 4 players. We play with personal sets of cards, where you draw 3 and pick 1, replacing the 2 back on the top or bottom of the pile. Cerebral and mathematical. Some of the group find it dry.
Ys - A good bidding/area-control game of handling too many scoring tracks. Like Alladin's Dragons, but with less theme, if that were possible.
Yehuda
Weekend Gaming
Rachel and I headed out to dinner at a family in our shul at whom we had not eaten before. They were a couple with four children, all boys. I debated what games to bring. I was going to bring For Sale and Sticheln, but ended up up only bringing Sticheln, because it was less obtrusive. This is not because I know how to play Sticheln, but because it has 6 suits and cards from 0-18 in each suit, which let's me play any of a dozen or more games.
Remember that these are not game players, as far as we know. Also, shabbat meals follow a certain understood pattern: kiddush, challah, various foods, songs, dessert, go home. Gaming is not on the list.
Rachel even warned me, "You don't have to bring a game. These are intelligent people. We can have a conversation." The implication being not as I humorously chose to interpret, which is that gaming is not intelligent, but that gaming either presents a barrier to communication or is needed when conversation hasn't developed. Still, I said "Duh! Duh! Duh!" to Rachel all the way over.
Turns out that the father and I had a nice conversation about how his Dungeon Mastering is going with his kids and the merits of old style D&D and alternate RPGs versus the 3e version that he uses with his kids. Other conversations were also held; something about literature.
I played David and Goliath with them; it's not a great game. It has about zero strategy. And while it has some interesting tactics, I haven't decided if any of them are really of any value, or if it basically is all luck. But the game does present a new way of thinking, which is why it makes an interesting demonstration.
Sat afternoon we went to Nadine's who was hosting Rachel's weekly shiur. Afterwards we played Puerto Rico. I took second position and Nadine took third, since randomly drawing for positions before previous games hadn't been assigning us equivalent frequencies at each position.
The game hinged on a good choice by Nadine at the beginning of round six. The boats had corn and sugar. At the end of round five, even though both Rachel and I could have manned indigo, Rachel was only set to produce sugar, I was set to produce corn and coffee, and Nadine was set to produce corn and tobacco. The trading house had corn, indigo, and sugar in it. Settler had two gold, Trader one gold, and Craftsman one gold.
Nadine was governor and chose craftsman. Since nobody was producing indigo, Rachel decided to ship. My corn wasn't enough protection, and my coffee was forced onto a boat, leaving Nadine with her tobacco. We argued for a minute or two on whether Rachel should just have taken Settler, which would have let me trade Coffee, but then Rachel could take Trader the next round and trade sugar while Nadine traded tobacco.
Anyway, I still felt like I was doing ok, even though they both had Factories, while I had Harbor. I then got a Wharf while Nadine also got a Harbor. Rachel had Small Warehouse, but all she was doing was saving up corn, since the boats were always stuck. Rachel was kind of thinking she was going to lose, and I was kind of thinking that I was going to win. I knew I would be a large building behind, but I figured that I was more than ten VP's ahead.
Turns out that I was mistaken. Rachel eventually got the corn shipped, and both of them got their two big buildings, and Nadine ended the game before I could man my only large building. I chose to buy that building when I could have shipped instead, which would have been better for me. C'est la vie. I also forced Nadine to end the game with buildings, since I was set to mass ship the next round. Nadine ended with 52, Rachel with 48, and I had 45.
Yehuda
Remember that these are not game players, as far as we know. Also, shabbat meals follow a certain understood pattern: kiddush, challah, various foods, songs, dessert, go home. Gaming is not on the list.
Rachel even warned me, "You don't have to bring a game. These are intelligent people. We can have a conversation." The implication being not as I humorously chose to interpret, which is that gaming is not intelligent, but that gaming either presents a barrier to communication or is needed when conversation hasn't developed. Still, I said "Duh! Duh! Duh!" to Rachel all the way over.
Turns out that the father and I had a nice conversation about how his Dungeon Mastering is going with his kids and the merits of old style D&D and alternate RPGs versus the 3e version that he uses with his kids. Other conversations were also held; something about literature.
I played David and Goliath with them; it's not a great game. It has about zero strategy. And while it has some interesting tactics, I haven't decided if any of them are really of any value, or if it basically is all luck. But the game does present a new way of thinking, which is why it makes an interesting demonstration.
Sat afternoon we went to Nadine's who was hosting Rachel's weekly shiur. Afterwards we played Puerto Rico. I took second position and Nadine took third, since randomly drawing for positions before previous games hadn't been assigning us equivalent frequencies at each position.
The game hinged on a good choice by Nadine at the beginning of round six. The boats had corn and sugar. At the end of round five, even though both Rachel and I could have manned indigo, Rachel was only set to produce sugar, I was set to produce corn and coffee, and Nadine was set to produce corn and tobacco. The trading house had corn, indigo, and sugar in it. Settler had two gold, Trader one gold, and Craftsman one gold.
Nadine was governor and chose craftsman. Since nobody was producing indigo, Rachel decided to ship. My corn wasn't enough protection, and my coffee was forced onto a boat, leaving Nadine with her tobacco. We argued for a minute or two on whether Rachel should just have taken Settler, which would have let me trade Coffee, but then Rachel could take Trader the next round and trade sugar while Nadine traded tobacco.
Anyway, I still felt like I was doing ok, even though they both had Factories, while I had Harbor. I then got a Wharf while Nadine also got a Harbor. Rachel had Small Warehouse, but all she was doing was saving up corn, since the boats were always stuck. Rachel was kind of thinking she was going to lose, and I was kind of thinking that I was going to win. I knew I would be a large building behind, but I figured that I was more than ten VP's ahead.
Turns out that I was mistaken. Rachel eventually got the corn shipped, and both of them got their two big buildings, and Nadine ended the game before I could man my only large building. I chose to buy that building when I could have shipped instead, which would have been better for me. C'est la vie. I also forced Nadine to end the game with buildings, since I was set to mass ship the next round. Nadine ended with 52, Rachel with 48, and I had 45.
Yehuda
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