GAMING SESSION: eight player flavor

It can be difficult to find decent games that eight players can play without dividing into two groups (preferred). A couple of simple card games we tried tonight worked well with mixed ages.

Incan Gold is a great little game (originally created as Diamant, now in its second edition as the incarnation Incan Gold) where all players are explorers in a ruin. You collect gems in the ruined temple, and decide each turn whether to return to camp. If you do you keep all the treasure you found. If you stay you can get more treasure, but also if you experience two of the same hazards while there you lose everything you found. For a basic game it has great tension and decision making, especially with  eight players. This is a top quick game for the younger folk in my family to pull out and play.

Saboteur is another small card game, my wife bought it for me four or five years ago and it can take up to ten players. All participants are either miners who try to build a tunnel by laying cards (in a Water Works-like fashion) to a hidden gold mine, or saboteurs who try to prevent that from happening, As nobody's role is known unless revealed through actions, it is a very interactive game of 'whose on my side?' It begs for multiple plays as gold is received each round you play and roles change.

Both of these games satisfy the 6-8 player range, play very quickly, and require some thought and decision-making that keep it interesting.

GAMING SESSION: Light & Serious

Holiday gaming at its finest. The Family Friends edition found the Great Dalmuti (one of the better group card games) to be the hit. We also like to go full out with this game: We wear hats according to rank: The Dalmuitis (greater & lesser) are royalty, the Peons (greater & lesser) are fools, and the rest are Middle working class. Seating also includes a padded chair for the Great Dalmuti, and a bucket for the Greater Peon. The Peons also serve the rest of the group - it's good to be the king! We had quite a few work their way up in the ranks, while some experienced a serious fall in the social strata.

Turbo-Scrabble worked also well in the larger groups and got multiple plays.

When it got serious we broke out Puerto Rico and Bibliotheke. PR is a brain-burner with the many decisions and options at your disposal, and I was locked more than once in some serious AP (analysis paralysis). Considered a gamer's game and one of the highest ever ranked, PR groups many mechanics and innovative game ideas into one. Early quarries and a late surge in production and buying the Guild Hall sneaked out a close victory here.

With Bibliotheke we discovered some more good feedback and areas to slightly improve, especially in how the Black Market works and action point balance. It depends on the group of players, but I am considering putting in more direct attack opportunities. Victory points in the Event stack, using the Black Market and going for higher point books was the key in this session.

NEW WEB SITE

I have decided to more our website to a blog format. I will try and import over previous posts and items of interest. Check this blog for event and game updates.

EVENT: December Gaming Session

The LaMont Group is looking toward their next event over the holidays: Monday, December 21. Early session begins at around 12 noon, the second session in the evening.

Competition Opportunities

The LaMont Group will attempt to send its first developed prototype to a competition. Great game design and development is being done in Utah (see the Board Game Designers Guild of Utah: http://www.bgdg.info/ ). The SaltCon gaming convention is Feb 26-28, 2010, and there will be a game design competition called the Ion Award. Our Group will send Bibliotheke as an entry and see how it goes. Thanks again to all those who have helped develop this game over the past year.

Bibliotheke: UPDATE

Bibliotheke has come quite a ways, thanks to the evaluations and feedback (especially Randy and Caleb). Here are just a few notes to look forward to when we play it next:

Instead of one large board we have gone to 5 modular ones that fit together based upon the regions. Because the number of boards/regions used is based upon the number of players, you only need to now play with the board space you will use. Here is an updated snapshot of the boards:

Library book stacks will now be placed at the edge of the board by the corresponding library. The 5 regions are: 1-Mesopotamia, 2-Egypt/Levant, 3-Asia Minor, 4-Aegean, 5-Italy/N. Africa.

I have also been reved up about the fun of great replayability, and here is how I incoporate that in Biblioitheke. Each game played can select different combination of regions, as long as they are continuous. Each region has different spacing which effects gameplay. Each region has 5 libraries, and one is randomly deactivated in each region in each game, which can greatly alter strategies based upon distance and how many collection spaces are being battled over. Variety is still intact as there are endless combinations to create a collection based upon 3 different categories of Subject, Region and Period, with 5 variants within each category. Variation and flexibility cotinues in ordering each collection alphabetically or chronologically.

To fight the problem of library "camping" and lack of movement I have done the following: Each library stack begins only with 5 books, making it more feasible to go to another library rather than taking time to research finding a new book. A nice mechanic was created with many of the event cards pertaining to libraries. Each library begins with two tiles for collections. As collections are created, those tiles are removed from a bag, making the selection of a library for events more likely to happen to libraries with no collections (thus no player) and creating more movement.

Most of the other variations and interaction come through the event cards, and I made those more inticing by placing victory points in them and reducing their action point cost to 1. Within victory points I removed the points for first one to 3 collections so that finishing first does not ensure victory, while adding some different combinations by which one can pick up extra victory points. This helps to create multiple paths and opportunities to win.

I have also finalized after consuming research the 125 books to be used in the game. They all fit very accurately into the 3 categories and the variations within for balance. Their point values have also been accurately assessed on a grid so that not a single variation has a point advantage over another variation as a whole. Here are some samples with updated artwork:

This is the most complete prototype of the group, and the game can be fully played.

Games, Requests and Updates

A few games that the LaMont Group has not played in awhile (or at all) to be considered:

Torres
Shadows of Camelot
Tigris & Euphrates
Pandemic: On the Brink
Master of Rules
Oasis
Vikings
Vineta

Let me know if there are other requests for the table. We would also like to consider the hosting of tournaments for certain games, and/or a good point system or rankings for our participation. We would also like to keep our own database on how we have ranked and evaluated published games.

Some updates on other developments:
Diamond Dynasty has been on the back burner for awhile, with the consideration of moving it from a purely card venture to a full board game with a card component. Stadiums would be the boards, with pegs/markers to track the various economic and revenue systems. Player rosters, events and actions would remain on cards.
City-States has taken its invest/return mechanic back to the drawing board so that it is more logical.
Bibliotheke has some great fixes to it based upon evaluations and feedback. It is starting to take shape.