Game nights with newbies

by Susan Rozmiarek
Like many gamers totally immersed in the hobby, I have a strong desire to introduce others to that which I enjoy so much. My motives are mixed and I’m not even sure I totally understand them. Sure, I definitely want more opportunities and people to play my beloved games with, but I guess that I also want to validate my obsessed behavior as well. Currently, I have two different opportunities to help start and develop fledgling game groups. One is in my neighborhood which is trying to start up various social functions for its residents, and the other is in a nearby town. The thing is, nearly all the people involved are what I would call casual gamers or even non-gamers. These folks are only familiar with traditional games and those found in the local “big box” stores. They are quite likely driven to attend a game night more from social reasons than by a love of the games themselves. So, this has gotten me to thinking about how to make these game nights enjoyable so that they take off and continue.

If I were to be asked to list my hobbies, playing games would be number one hands down. But I would also likely list crosstitching, reading and gardening as well. By examining my different degrees of participation in these other hobbies, it becomes easier to understand where these casual gamers are coming from and what they probably want out of a game night.

At one time, I was attending both a weekly and a monthly “stitch” group. A group of us would meet at each other’s houses and bring our current crosstitch project to work on while we snacked and socialized. We had a great time and I looked forward to it greatly each week. Crosstitching was something I liked to do, but what I really enjoyed was hanging out with my friends. Stitching was just a good excuse. Several of the women there though, were REALLY into crosstitching. They participated in online discussion groups about it, they were familiar with the various chart designers and they knew all about and where to find the latest specialty threads. (Gee, does this sound familiar?!?) One friend in particular had an enormous collection of charts, more than any one person could possibly stitch in her lifetime. We’d laugh and she would tell me that she had two hobbies – one was stitching and the other was collecting charts. I thought she was a little crazy. Now, several years later, I have 600+ board games in my house and can totally relate!

Reading however, is not only something I like to do, like crosstitching, but in fact am compelled to do. I drag a book around wherever I go in case I can snatch a bit of time to read. I can’t think of many times in my life when I didn’t have a book in progress. I like to discuss books with friends who have read them. Occasionally, I have read discussion groups and book reviews in the hopes of getting recommendations and perhaps discovering a new author. You’d think I’d have participated in a book group by now but the idea of picking apart a book just doesn’t appeal to me; my interest is not quite up to that level. Maybe someday I will though; I’m not counting it out.

Gardening, on the other hand, threatens to become a real obsession if only I had the time. I love spending money and time on plants and seeds and dirt. Really, I love it. I can spend all day outside digging and weeding and admiring the fruit of my labors. I see announcements about out local gardening club’s meetings and am determined to go someday. There is a staggering amount of information and discussion about gardening online if only I had the time to read it. But you see, in order to do all that something would have to give, time-wise. I have many responsibilities in my life and only a limited amount of time for hobbies. I have to choose between them and so will only dabble in gardening for now, even though I long to do more. Still, if I were ever to find the time to go to one of those club meetings, who knows what would happen.

So how does all this rambling relate to these game nights? Well, I’m trying to walk a bit in the shoes of some of the people that may be attending. I need to tread carefully and not kill these events with my over enthusiasm. That would be so very easy to do, given my love and obsession for gaming and would likely overwhelm some of these people and drive them away. Like my crosstitching group was for me, game night is simply a good excuse for socializing for some. I bet many of them have other hobbies and chances are their interest in games will never rise beyond getting together like this to play occasionally. And that’s just fine. Life is short; we can’t do everything. Others will be more interested, but perhaps never to the point of discussing Puerto Rico strategies. Bombarding any of these folks with lots of new games to learn is probably a bad idea. My best bet is to pull out some good “gateway” games with the understanding that they might get played repeatedly before the time is right to slip in a new game. And of course, playing a few traditional or mass market games that folks are already comfortable with wouldn’t be a bad idea either. I’ve been so deeply immersed in Eurogames for so long now that I’ve lost some perspective and forgotten just how different and intimidating they can be at first with new rules to learn, unfamiliar mechanisms and the fear of looking stupid in front of others. On the other hand, I can remember the thrill of discovering these games for the first time and the insatiable desire for more once they clicked. All it takes sometimes is for somebody to find the time to go to one of those game nights…………..

California Dreamin'

by Susan Rozmiarek
We haven’t been organizing group Adam Spielt orders these days. So very many games are now coming out in English editions that there just haven’t been enough European games on our want list to warrant an order. Mark has taken up the slack though, and we were more than happy to add a few games to his order. We got Antike, Himalaya, and California. The first two are hard to find stateside and California had not yet reached our shores when the order was placed. I had to have it since not only is it by a designer I like, but the theme is all about shopping and furnishing a house. I believe Ed would readily confirm that that is indeed a theme I could relate to!

California

Since the rules were simple and it had a short playing time listed on the box, California seemed a good one to try first. Kevin was feeling quite crabby from a bad day, but Ed and I convinced him to give it a whirl with us. We couldn’t convince Shea to play as expected, since his sibling rival was playing, but he did his usual observing and kibitzing much to our annoyance.

California is a simple tile-laying game. Each person has a mansion in front of them with a grid of rooms that they need to renovate by placing a colored tile on it. After that, they can place furniture in it (depicted on another tile of the same color) which will attract a visitor of the matching color who may or may not bring a house-warming gift. They bring a gift only if there is already another visitor present. Why somebody else has to be present for them to show generosity, I have no clue. Perhaps it’s only about appearances or something?? This is California after all. ;-) Presents are worth points at the end of the game. There is only one visitor in each of the colors so they change hands quite a bit during the game. There are also bonus tiles for being the first to do certain furniture combinations. On your turn, you either take money from the bank or buy a tile from one of two stores, each displaying four tiles drawn randomly. The price depends on the amount of money in the bank. As it goes down, the price of tiles goes down. If you buy a tile you must place it although you do have room to store one piece of furniture in your attic, two if you’ve renovated it. Once the last coin is taken from the bank or the last tile is taken from one of the stores, the day ends. The bank is refilled with four coins, the remaining tiles are discarded and replaced with new ones and another day starts. The game lasts 12 days.

There are lots of nice little tactical decisions to make in the game, although they weren’t all apparent at the start. Ed got the most bonuses which won him the game. Kevin got quite frustrated by Ed and I buying tiles right before him that he really needed. This is, of course, one of the aspects of the game. You always need to be watching what your opponents need. Poor Kevin came in a distant last place putting him in an even worse mood. I’m not sure he’ll even want to play it again. Sigh. He has become one of those moody teenagers, I’m afraid! I will have to play a wargame with him soon. He always crushes me at those which makes him happy!

So, two nights later, Shea requested that we play California with him. He needed to let his rabbit out for his supervised play time so that meant we had to play in his room. That rabbit must be watched like a hawk as he will chew anything – cords, carpet, books. He is obviously part beaver. Unfortunately, my 41 yr. old back was not pleased by having to sit on the floor after I had spent the afternoon wielding a shovel in the yard discovering yet again that our house sits on a giant granite rock. But, I wasn’t about to turn down a request to play a game so we set it up and jumped right in since we all knew the rules. Shea had already picked up on all the tactics by watching the previous game and proceeded to steamroll over Ed and me, picking up a few bonuses and a huge pile of gifts. It was amusing to see him snatch a piano and stuff it in his attic before Ed could get it for a bonus. Hee, hee. He won, but we weren’t too far behind. Ed pipped me for second by only two points, darn it.

After two plays, I really like the game. I have seen reports of it playing poorly with more players. Without having tried it yet, I have a feeling that the criticism is probably valid. Like they claim, I bet it becomes a lot more random. With three players though, it plays perfectly fine. It’s almost too light for my game group, which seems to be fixated on meaty games for some reason lately. (Haven’t they heard yet that the Atkins diet is bad for you?). However, it’s perfect for the family and new or casual gamers. With the theme, I bet I could even get some of my non-gaming female friends to try it.

Here are Ed and Shea playing California. We tried to get the normally curious Ranger the Rabbit to pose with the game. Alas, he merely thumped at us and watched from a distance. You'd think all that cardboard to taste would have been a temptation he couldn't resist!

Mesopotamia Review

by Susan Rozmiarek
I've posted a long overdue review of Mesopotamia, a game by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Mayafair and Phalanx Games.

"Players control nomadic tribes in ancient Mesopotamia, exploring, settling and building holy places. The game is essentially a race to fulfill certain victory conditions that uses exploration, resource management and pick-up and delivery mechanisms. "

For some reason, I thought this was going to be a heavier game than it turned out to be. Phalanx "big box" games give me that impression even though I haven't actually played many of them. I'd classify Mesopotamia as on the lighter side of middleweight making it a good choice for both my game group and my family. I liked it a lot although some gamers are going to gripe about the luck elements.

Day Gaming Report for April 11, 2006

by Susan Rozmiarek
John Gravitt held day gaming at his house today and I was finally able to go again. He usually has a hard time finding people free on a week day to attend, but Tim happened to have the day off and with Gina, John’s wife, we had the perfect number of players. Sorry, no pictures. Ed is the one who always remembers the camera and he was at work, probably happily playing Tichu with his lunchtime group.

Elasund

I have lost count of how many times I’ve taught this game to new players. Not surprisingly, just about every one of those people has been impressed with the game. I consider this the very best game of 2005, even over the wildly popular Caylus. This game is so finely balanced and competitive that playing it is always an enjoyable experience. “Mean” games with lots of direct conflict are normally not my favorites, but for some reason I find the viciousness in Elasund to be great fun.

The game started off with everyone playing “nice” but things eventually turned ugly as people realized that one had to get nasty to win. In honor of the upcoming Easter holiday, I decided to pursue what I call the Church Strategy. I tried to get out buildings at the start which produce money to get a steady stream of income so that I could work on building the church. Victory points on church tiles are safe from ever getting removed but the tradeoff is that they are expensive to build. It mostly worked as I managed to build four church tiles during the game. Unfortunately, I did have to build one over one of my smaller cash buildings which slowed down my money stream a bit. I was able to get one victory point on the wall as did John, but Tim and Gina gobbled up the remaining spaces, each getting out two victory point cubes. Meanwhile, John went after the windmill track, building over one of my buildings and costing me my windmill points. Tim threatened one of my buildings with his permits, interrupting my church building to focus on defense. I was able to turn things around and build over his building instead, getting out one of the large buildings. It came down to a very close race between Gina and me, but I was able to build one of the tiny buildings for the win. Great game!

We also played a game of Exxtra and a hand of Frank’s Zoo before I had to leave. I need to get out Frank’s Zoo and play it with my kids. It’s been ages since I’ve played it myself and this reminded what a fun little climbing game it is. Of course, the cute art boosts my opinion a notch as well.

Mayfair's Extreme Makeover

by Susan Rozmiarek
Yowsa, what a difference! Mayfair Games has totally redesigned their website and it looks very slick and well-organized. The old one was pretty awful and looked slapped together. Good job!

Even more interesting though, was a tidbit posted by Guido Teuber in a BoardgameGeek discussion that hinted at possible online gaming in the future. I would love to see play-by-web (as opposed to real time) versions of some of the games in their stable. Wow, I can think of all kinds of possibilities – Dos Rios, Mesopotamia, Domaine, Amazonas, Elasund, Entdecker and all those lovely, lovely train games.

Okay, time for a little pity party. Why, oh why did I have to discover the Empire Builder series so late? Weren’t these once all the rage in the gaming world? It’s not fair; I wasn’t even a gamer back then and I feel like I’ve missed my chance. I know that “train gamers” exist but not in my circles. When I suggest playing one at our game days all I hear from my euro-snoot (term coined by DW Tripp here) friends are:

“I am so over train games now”
“They take too long”
“I don’t like the random events”
“They are too ugly and fiddly”

Okay, there have been a few people willing to indulge me once in a blue moon, but one is moving away and any others are always lured away by the shiny new eurogames that constantly show up at our house and steal the thunder on game days. Fortunately, Brian Bankler reminded me of this computer version of Eurorails on his blog. I finally got it downloaded and installed and it has been sucking what little free time I have during the day. Lordy, am I ever addicted now! I’m just itching to try out some of the other games in the series like Russian Rails, preferably against real opponents and not just “the red bot.” Play-by-web versions would at least be a step in the right direction. Help me out Mayfair!

I wonder how many of you can relate to this?

by Susan Rozmiarek
Oh boy, does this ever hit close to home!

We have been much better about our game purchases lately. Or should I say, lack of game purchases lately. Still, Ed and I have been drooling over the avalanche of games slated for release over the next month or two. It's going to be tough to hold back. I can hardly wait to get my hands on that new Ticket to Ride game.