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.

GAMING SESSION: Dominion dominates

Dominion is truly an awesome game, and the first expansion Intrigue only makes it better. The card game has simple mechanics of play an action then buy a card, with those two actions being further enhanced by other cards. The greatest aspect of Dominion is the replayability. Each game uses only 10 kingdom cards which inteact with each other to set the table for game play. The original Dominion came with 25 kingdom cards, and Intrigue added 25 more, plus there are two promotional cards to bring the total to 52 different cards. Since onoy 10 are used each game, the combinations are endless giving each game a different flavor and unique strategies.

Other games with great replayability are Settlers of Catan with a differently formed gameboard each game in addition to different values and scarcity assigned to each resource. The same goes for Hey That's My Fish!, with a uniquely formed gameboard each game of over 60 tiles - the added bous is that it plays quickly and often can take less time to play than to set it up! Carcassonne is another that creates a unique gameboard each time it is played.

GAMING SESSION: Game ideas for group to develop

At our last couple of game development sessions in March, four game ideas in various stages were presented for review and prototypes played. Here is the review of that session:

City-States - A resource development game that mirrors many computer "empire-building" games, but in a simpler format. The main mechanic is the allocation of resources simultaneously by chips on 4 of 8 possible actions. Gains/losses are based upon how many players selected the same actions. Raw in structure, but great player interaction. GEC- 3.1

Diamond Dynasty - A franchise baseball card game that covers most aspects of running a baseball team: economics, players, facilities and the season itself. Great concept with many player choices, but needs reworking of math formulas and flow. GEC - 1.8

Bibliotheke - A game about ancient libraries and famous writings collected. Lots of variety and ways to assemble collections in a race, with good mechanics for collecting. Structure of game is solid with some details to be worked out. GEC - 4.2

Road Trip - Simple card/tile laying game of sight seeing and souvenir collecting. Has great potential for a wide audience once the idea has more clarity. GEC - 3.0

Bibliotheke is clearly ahead in design and overall concept and will be the top game for the group to help develop. Looking forward to more designs and playtest opportunities.

GAMING SESSION

A couple of smaller games that we enjoyed playing at the last session:

Gheos - it got some press but then it wasn't heard from much. I enjoy this game where you play gods in setting and changing the land, and thus the fate of the civilizations below. As a player you are not tied to one civilization, but all of them if you choose. You score points from those that have the most power, and that you can manipulate into scoring possibilities that are half random, and half initiated by you. Your strategy can change on a dime as the fates of civilizations rise and fall with land changes, wars and famines. Unique mechanics make it very interactive.

Traders of Carthage - a small board game with great mechanics that make every move effect gameplay and strategy. Players bid for four different goods that are being shipped from Alexandria to Carthage. Every player scores who has the goods that make it first there. Other ships of products can be raided by pirates or sent back on their journey. The cards serve multiple purposes in the game: goods type, amount of goods, currency for purchasing, storage from pirates and coin values for scoring. Must plan for turns ahead to find success.

GAMING SESSION

Small report on our last gaming sesison, we went old school (as far as euro-games go) with Seafarers of Catan. We like playing the basic Catan island with unknown tiles for the other smaller islands. The randomness and replayability of Catan is always a treat as you need to create a new strategy for every game. Settlers of Catan really started the publicity for the new wave of Euro-games that are aplenty today.