June Gaming at the JSGC

The month of June worked out to five Wed evenings of gaming. In addition we had a special gaming session with our guests Chris Brooks and Erich Litch from the U.S. on a Saturday afternoon, making six gaming session in all. One of our sessions had a high attendance of 12 players.

Chris brought us three new games, Louis the XIV, For Sale, and Sticheln. New blood. By the end of July I am hoping to receive a number of other games waiting for me in America, to be brought back by my brother after his vacation. These games represent the fine art of trading games, trading Geek Gold, and auctioning.

As usual, I'm envious of all of you going to conventions all the time, Origins, BGG.con, Essen, etc... Some day when I'm rich and famous, sigh.

In the meantime, here is what we played this month (group activity only, doesn't include my personal plays):


My Game Prototype #1 x 7

The fiasco of my first attempt to publish this is detailed on my blog (the money was almost in my hands, man!). I'm now sending out feelers to other publishers. If anyone out there is interested in publishing a variably themed tight card game crossing Modern Art and Geschenkt, let me know. So far it has received a lot of good feedback, and we played it at every session this month.


Advanced Squad Leader

This one is played only by my son Eitan and a local guy named Ran, both of whom don't play anything else. They managed to make it to the club once this month, and will probably make it again once next month, but I think Eitan isn't going to continue with it. None of the regulars in the group, with the exception of David K, is interested in wargames.


Cities and Knights of Catan

My family has played this out, but some of our members are just discovering it. It will likely be played on low rotation.


Cosmic Encounter

I've been playing this for more than 20 years. We are now playing Ben's copy of Mayfair's version, and it's still good.


Cribbage

This is what gets played when two newcomers are left to fend for themselves for 15 minutes.


Dvonn x 2

I think I am beginning to understand the first part of the game, and it doesn't really impress me. The second part of the game is much more interesting.


El Grande

A fun five player game. El Grande is great, but on low rotation, which is good, as it is long.


For Sale x 2

New game for us. It was enjoyable. Not as enjoyable as Geschenkt or my own game, but good enough to play once in a while. A lot of people seem to think much higher of this game than we do.


Louis XIV x 2

Also a new game for us, and very enjoyable. I wasn't so happy with Goa, although the rest of my group liked it much more. This one I like better, although I only played half a game. Like Goa, the designer finely tuned the game to perfection and then seems to have wrecked it with unnecessary pure luck elements that you can neither control nor plan for. Why?


Magic: the Gathering x 3

I always lose to David, and these were no exception. Playing eight years now, haven't bought any cards for seven.


Princes of Florence x 2

We had this game for a while, and it suddenly had a revival. People realized that they liked it a lot. I actually though that I had stopped liking it, but now realize that I was wrong (or that I needed a break from it). It is still really good. I play with a few very small tweaks for five players.


Puerto Rico x 3

The GAME. Still going strong, and usually played with various buildings from my expansion sets (we didn't inflict that on Chris, however).


San Juan x 4

A heavily player filler game. Not top tier, in my opinion, but quite good.


Settlers of Catan

The usual intro for newbies, and they tend to play it at least several more times after being introduced to it, until they hit their first game of screwy dice rolls.


Starfarers of Catan

This is still relatively new to us, and enjoyed more than the other versions, but it is really long, and the pieces break easily.


Tigris and Euphrates

Unfortunately, aside from myself and Saarya, my group just doesn't like it. Go figure.


Tikal

Also not top tier for the group, nevertheless a game enjoyed when the regular games have been overplayed. I like the game better than that, but it does seem to lack an oomph, and there is a strong runaway leader problem.


Traumfabrik

A classic auction game, the group likes this once in a while, and I like it almost as much. Best strategy is conservative and directed play.


Web of Power x 2

A few mechanisms seem a little broken and unfinished, as I noted last time, but the general idea is solid for a light game. My group seems to think it would play better without the cards altogether.

Happy gaming,
Yehuda

Session Report Up

On my site. Games played: My game prototype, For Sale, Louis XIV, Magic: the Gathering, San Juan, Cosmic Encounter.

The first game played every session this month was the first game prototype. I now have several others for which I need to make mock-ups.

Thanks, Tom, for linking to my blog, but I only get a "6" rating? :-) It must be because I post my sessions on the main site instead of here - they're easy to miss.

I am embroiled in a legalese discussion on Spielfrieks regarding IP and games, which is also the subject of my ethics article about to be on The Games Report. I had to cut all of the legalese out of the article (now posted to Spielfrieks), and I'm worried the article will seem more like random opinions, rather than sound arguments. I do have pretty solid support for the opinions.

Then Shannon Applegate posted links to three articles he had written on the subject specifically covering all of the legalese topics I had cut out of my article, so there you go.

Yehuda

OT: Court Ruling Against Copyright Infringement

Just a small note:

A recent court ruling allows publishers to sue both copyright infringers and the makers of software who deliberately condone copyright infringement.

Some exerpts: http://www.newsobserver.com/24hour/technology/story/2514744p-10883045c.html

But NOTE: The language used is consistent by the court: copyright infringement. The court knows what it is saying. Nowhere does the ruling mention "stealing", "theft", or "piracy".

Yet just look at the news articles covering the event, example: http://www.newsobserver.com/24hour/technology/story/2514744p-10881652c.html

Why is this a problem? It is like calling someone who steals a "murderer". Or someone who reads adult literature a "rapist". The moral category is so vastly different that there is no real correlation.

Please stop calling copyright-infringement "piracy" and "theft".

ObGame: Working on two new designs, including one for the SiegeStone contest.

Yehuda

Progressive Rummy

My parents visited, so I played a few hands of Progressive Rummy with my mom (the card game played with two standard decks of 52 cards, not Phase 10). We have been playing this since childhood, and I would be hard pressed to say why this is the rummy game we played the most. Two decks, 5 rounds, each player is dealt 11 cards. In each round you have to meld (straights are always 4 cards):

1st round - straight, three of a kind
2nd round - 2 straights
3rd round - 3 three of a kinds (or as we call it, Go Fish)
4th round - straight, 2 three of a kinds
5th round - 2 straights, three of a kind.

Melds can go from ace up to ace. Red aces are wild, and a player may "May I" out of turn, picking up the discard and a penalty card if the player whose turn it is doesn't take it (and other players before him don't "May I" it). After melding, you can then add cards from your hand onto your own or other player's melds. When someone goes out, other players score negative points for what is left in ther hand: face value, pictures are ten, black aces 15, and red aces 20.

I guess it was a reasonable multi-player game for kids when we didn't have four for bridge. My brother Ben perfected the art of going down and out in one swoop.

The other rummies we played most often were 500 rummy with my grandmother, and gin with ourselves, when we had nothing better to do. Thank god I can always find something better to do now.

After Progressive Rummy, my mom and I played some bridge, each of us picking up two hands each.

When Tal was around, she begged to play my new game, which we did a few times, and then I taught my mom, who also enjoyed it.

No PR game, since we went for a little tour in the afternoon around the neighborhood learning about early 20th century residents of the area. A nice shabbat walk.

Yehuda

Blahg

Something got messed up with the previous template, so I am forced to move to a new one.

Also, I have removed a few of my links to blogs that don't update frequently enough. I try to post every two days minimally. Maybe my postings are not too long, but the content is at least fresh. Some blogs that post less frequently, such as once a week are also good, if the postings are, at least, longer and worth the wait.

I just don't feel it is worth my effort to check on blogs that have no postings for months at a time. So I am forced to drop the links, even if some of the content is ok. If you're not going to post on your blog for a long time, or it has been a while, please let people know what the status is, so they don't waste time checking every day.

I'm now working on a few other game designs. With the confidence of creating a good game, I am opening the gates to a slew of other games that have always been on the back burner of my mind. A good feeling. What I need is more regular game testers. Time to scout around the BGDF looking to see what the best approach to this is.

If anyone wants to volunteer, and has a few friends willing to playtest my designs as I make them, let me know.

Yehuda

Session Report Up

On my site. Games played: My game prototype, For Sale, Puerto Rico, Princes of Florence, Louis XIV, Cribbage, San Juan.

I have received some tentative interest from an American publisher. Here's hoping.

Yehuda

The Supportive Family

I finally got my wife to try my game prototype. She liked it, and we immediately played two more times. Of course, I could have done without the huge astonishment on her face, "Hey, this is actually fun!".

Of course, then our oldest daughter walks in and asks us what we are playing, and when we tell her, she says, "Really? You mean it's actually a fun game? Really?"

Yehuda