Susan's Gulf Games 18 Report - Part 1

by Susan Rozmiarek
Our family just got back from Gulf Games 18, a fairly small, private gaming get-together of around 40 families (about 100 people including children) that takes place twice a year at various locations. This time it took place in Indiana, directly across the river from downtown Louisville, Kentucky. I hope to post a few reports over the next week or two, starting with this one, with some brief comments about the games that I played as well as a few of the non-gaming activities I enjoyed. Afterwards, I’ll wrap things up with some thoughts on the event itself.

Tuesday:

We arrived in Louisville after a smooth and uneventful day of flying and got to our hotel with an hour or two to spare before going to the group dinner at an Irish pub. The food there was pretty decent and I enjoyed a bowl of lamb stew and soda bread with some hard cider to wash it down. It was a great way to kick things off and greet everyone. The pub had a big trivia game going on, but after a while we got bored with it and decided to get back to the hotel and turn in so we could get an early start to gaming the next day. Alas, the temptation was too strong. Despite the late hour, a full stomach and travel fatigue, it was hard to resist the siren call of gaming. After all, that was why we were here, right? I might as well get started as soon as possible.

Gift Trap

Greg Schloesser was teaching this new party game. Cards depicting various gifts were turned over and you had to secretly choose one to give to each player while secretly ranking them on how well you’d like to receive them yourself. You got points for correct matches in both presents you gave and those you received in a rather clever method of scoring. This game reminded me of my one playing of Apples to Apples which is definitely not a good thing. In order to guess well, you really need to know the people you are playing with. Now, the group I was playing with was great fun and made the most of the humor, but I was totally guessing as to what they would like as gifts. Die Macher and El Grande were not choices, I’m afraid. Also, many of the gifts were rather risqué. That, in and of itself, didn’t bother me other than making it unsuitable for family play. However, some of the gifts, such as breast augmentation or a divorce lawyer, could offend even a good friend if you gave it to them as a gift! Ugh. Pass.

Wednesday:

I usually ease into the day at these things by playing a “fluffy” game or two. I’m not a morning person at all and I usually show up in the game room so late that I only have time for a short game before my family is clamoring to go out to lunch. This was also the first official day of Gulf Games and the big event later that evening was the Welcome Back party. Vickie and Greg (and others I’m sure) did a bang-up job devising a fun activity to get everyone to mix and get to know each other. The theme this time was "Take me out to the Games." Everyone was divided into baseball teams indicated by colored hats. A tournament between teams then ensued at various “baseball diamonds” around the room using baseball tees and little balls and bats, with the object being to hit the ball and have it land on different spaces on the floor representing hits. It was all rather silly but everyone, adults and children alike, got into the spirit of things and had a good time. Now on to the games I played that day:

Honeybears

I played this fast and fun classic with Craig Berg and several kids, including my own son, Shea. Shea had never played it before, despite the fact that we own it and have played it several times with the adult group. Now I feel silly, since it is a kid’s game and I’ve never tried it with my kids! Shea really liked the game especially given that he won handily. Go red bear! (I’m required to say that)

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

Next up, Ward Batty taught this game to Tim Watson, Ed, Maria, and me. This is really a visually stunning game. All that eye candy has been calling out to me since the game was released. The chorus of voices claiming the game play was lacking had been holding me back from ordering it before I got to try it out. Fortunately, this agonizing purchasing decision was solved when Ed won a free copy of the game in a contest at BoardgameGeek. Yay, Ed! In this Egyptian themed game, players are literally building a 3-D model of a palace for Cleopatra. The box bottom is turned over and used as the main building and there are all sort of plastic components representing, sphinxes, obelisks, wall columns, and more. There is a garden on the top of the building where players will be building a mosaic around Cleopatra’s throne. This game is truly a sight to behold when it is finished! The game itself is a mishmash of familiar mechanisms, with only a bit here and there that feels original. All of the above items are built with different sets of collected resources, similar to Settlers of Catan. The turns are rather like Ticket to Ride where you either acquire resource cards or build but not both. Using a clever idea, the cards are shuffled so that some are face up and some are facedown and are then displayed in sets, with a card added to each after a player has taken a set. So, the sets of cards are usually of varying numbers of facedown and face up cards. When each part of the palace is built, the player building it earns “Talents” which are essentially victory points. The number earned depends on the part built. All these different ways to score are pretty fiddly, but players’ aids with the information are provided, thank goodness. The heart of the game seems to really be managing “corruption” as much as building the palace. Many of the cards are more powerful versions of the regular cards or have a special ability, but earn corruption when played. Corruption is represented by tokens that players keep hidden until the end of the game. The most corrupt architect at the end of the game automatically loses. Managing corruption seems to be the heart of the game and there are many times in the game where one is tempted to take corruption for some benefit. There are several ways to get rid of corruption, including by laying mosaic tiles in the garden. This is one of a couple of side mechanisms in the game that feels a bit tacked on. This particular one I enjoyed, as it requires a bit of spatial skills placing the tiles. Another one of these side bits was rather distracting, that of rolling dice to see if enough symbols are showing to require offerings to the Great Priest. If so, the game is paused to conduct a closed- fist offering of Talents (VPs) by each player. The Talents are lost and the one who offered the most loses corruption while all others take corruption. This part of the game, while not happening often, was both painful and annoying and one I could have done without. Overall though, I thought the game was fun and thematic, although I wouldn’t call it spectacular. I’d gladly play again and I’m very happy to own a copy.

Good grief. That was certainly a long and convoluted way of saying the game was very pretty and had some flaws but I liked it anyway!

Traumfabrik

This is one of my very favorite auction and building games. The auctions here are less painful than in other games because all of the losers of each auction get to divvy up the winner’s payment. So, it’s fun to try and bid things up so that you get more money and you know that eventually you’ll have enough to guarantee winning an auction. It’s also one of those games where you build something in front of you that other players can’t mess with directly. In this case, you “build” movies with actors, directors, special effects, etc. I love this type of game. Alan Moon proved to be the Movie Man, beating out Curt Churchill, Ward and Maria Batty, and me. I didn’t do so well this time around, but my production of Frankenstein took Best Picture one year.

Tempus

Leon Hendee took Curt’s seat and we continued playing with this supposedly “civ-lite” game that has so many gamers salivating over its impending release. This was my second playing of the game, having played the prototype last year at BGG.con. I’m sorry to dash any hopes, but it’s definitely not civ-lite, in my opinion. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even sure I really liked the game at first, although after this second playing I most definitely do. It’s a very clean and elegant land-grabbing and majorities game that reminds me a bit of both Vinci and Evo. The theme is definitely a civilization one, but as everyone gets the same abilities at the nearly the same time (in a clever way that rewards the person holding the most land of a certain type), it doesn’t feel like a civilization game where one would expect more choices as to how to develop his empire. Right off the bat in this game, I felt like I was in a losing position. I ended up with a poor starting location squeezed in the middle with lots of mountains around that score nothing. Both times playing this game, I felt that I couldn’t get in sync with the game rhythm. I’d try to plan ahead and set myself to win the early advancements but instead always got beaten out. It was very frustrating and I wasn’t enjoying the game much. Since I had very little room to expand, I concentrated on getting out cities in my little area and was able attack my neighbor (sorry Maria!) for a little more space near the end of the game while her attention was elsewhere. Much to my surprise, I actually won the game! Perhaps it was because nobody considered me a threat and mostly left me alone, but I’m going to pretend it was my great skill and strategic plan. :-) While I’m not completely wowed by the game (yet – that could easily change with repeated play), I am looking forward to exploring the strategies further. It is definitely a clever and clean design that I bet will prove quite popular with many gamers once they get over the fact that it isn’t what many people were hyping/hoping it to be.

Rum & Pirates

Larry Chong agreed to teach this game to John Berry, Warren Madden, and me. Despite all the lukewarm reviews of this game floating around on the internet, I really wanted to try it. It is an Alea game after all, and its absence on our shelves means another hole in our numbered Alea collection. (We still need Fifth Avenue as well). It is also a pirate game and there can never be too many of those – arrrr! I’ll have to agree with the multitudes of others. This light family game sticks out as a pony amongst thoroughbreds in Alea’s stable of games. But, if you ignore that lofty label on the box and the expectations it creates, it is indeed a fun, light game. However, it is not without some flaws. First of all, it goes on a bit too long. This first playing was waaaay too long. Larry had only played the game once and had been taught it, so we had to refer to the rules often. And there are lots of fiddly rules for each location on the board. They are easily remembered after playing several rounds, but learning all the locations is very tedious at first. There is also a lot of dice rolling that can bog down. In our game two players were “having a drinking contest” at a tavern and trying to win a tile for victory points by rolling a die. The first player to roll a “six” would win it, but it took over half a dozen rolls before the tile was taken while the rest of watched in boredom. There is also a dice battle at the end of every round that can drag on too long. This part of the game was very inelegant and clunky and I didn’t enjoy it very much. Other than that though, there was plenty else to like. The decisions were fairly easy, but I enjoyed managing my pirates, money and rum. There was loads of luck, but ways to mitigate it somewhat. It’s probably not a game that Ed and I would have purchased, but we were pleased to pick it up off the prize table later.

There are loads of pictures of the games and festivities starting here. However, at the time of this posting, some do not have captions yet.

Stayed tuned for Part 2........................

Gulf Games - Day 2

by Ed Rozmiarek
Day 2 of Gulf Games 18 has quickly come and gone. Only two new games for me today (out the the nine I played), Um Krone und Kragen/To Court the King and Rum and Pirates. Neither one wowed me but they were pleasant games. Both seemed a little too long for what they were and both need to be played quickly.

The highlight for the day was the scheduled Memoir 44: Overlord battle we had arranged. A group of us had played a game at last summer's Gulf Games and wanted to do it again. Once again Mark Jackson was the Allied Commander and I was the German Commander and the scenario was Sword Beach. The battle did not go well for the German side as not only did the Allies have the superior numbers but they got the superior cards. Mark got a great hand of cards allowing him to activate a large number of units each turn. The Allies were quickly able to storm the beach and overwhelm the well dug in, but out numbered German forces. The Germans put up a brave fight but in the end there were just too many Allies units coming up from the beach too quickly and they won the day 10 flags to 6.

Pictures from Thursday's games can be found in the Gulf Games 18 picture album. Again, picture captions to come. Now it's time to get downstairs to the game room. There's a rumor floating around that there is a dungeon waiting to be cleaned out by a brave band of adventurers.

Gulf Games - Day 1

by Ed Rozmiarek
Wednesday was the official start of Gulf Games 18. Lots of fun and good times seeing people we had not seen in a year or more. And the gaming was pretty good too. I got in eight games, four new ones and four repeats. Highlights for today included a game of Hacienda on Leon Hendee's homemade board. It was a very nice board and after a couple more tweeks should be ready for prime time. I'm going to need to get a copy of the files once he is done. The late night game of Thingamajig with Sheldon Smith, Elaine and Chris Lohroff, Craig Berg and James Miller was a hoot. We just kept playing until it was time for the younger kids to leave the game room. When the chips ran out we just threw more chips in to keep the game running. This is yet anouther game that falls flat with our home group and I only get to play it here.

One interesting change from previous Gulf Games is our reaction to new games. During our first Gulf Games four years ago, when we were still fairly fresh into the hobby, our "buy" list kept growing each day. We'd play a new game and onto the list the game would go if we liked it. Susan and I are putting much more thought into what we are going to buy. So, the only thing that I played on Wednesday that is going to go on the "maybe buy" list is Hart au der Grenze. It was cute and with the right people can be fun. The group I played with was very fun. My group at home is very much into "serious" games right now and I'm not sure they would get into the right frame of mind to roleplay that game. I was able to cross off Aquadukt and Mykerinos and Susan crossed off Rum and Pirates. Although, I think Tempus will make the cut as Susan got to play it second time (the first being at BGG.CON) and gave it a thumbs up.

I have uploaded pictures from Wednesday to the Gulf Games 18 picture album. Sorry, no captions this morning as I'm off to play more games downstairs.

It's started!

by Ed Rozmiarek
Not quite officially started, but we arrived in Loiusville, Kentucky for Gulf Games 18 on Tuesday. We got in in time for the group dinner at a local Irish pub called Molly Malone's. After dinner, the group participated in the Wednesday night trivia contest. We then returned to the hotel for some socializing and games.

I have started uploading picture to my Gulf Games 18 picture album.

My Top Five Abstract Games

by Susan Rozmiarek
I did want to jot down my top five favorite abstract games, which is the requirement for entering the latest Dice Tower contest for a free copy of the game Darter. This was hard to narrow down to just five. You’re a cruel man, Tom Vasel; this should have been a top ten list. I’m also going to leave off the list entirely the obvious choice for the #1 spot: Go. Go is an incredible game and one that could suck me right in to its black vortex never to be seen at another game’s table again. Its simple beauty contains astonishing depths of play. I love to read about it and study problems. However, I rarely actually play it against an opponent and it feels so serious that I hesitate to call it “fun”. I definitely have to be in a certain mood to even approach it. In contrast, the games on the following list are much lighter and more fun and are ones that I’m always willing to play.

1. Blokus/Gemblo: These games, which are so similar that I’m lumping them together, are simple, play quickly and are a good choice to pull out for non-gamers and family. The plastic bits are gorgeous and the colorful board by the end of the game is quite striking. The game doesn’t require a great deal of thought, but it does stretch my meager spatial skills and always feels tense. We just bought the new Blokus Trigon but we haven’t had a chance to play it yet.

2. Zendo: It flops with the wrong group, but I could solve these puzzles forever with other fans of this induction game. And it uses those lovely, lovely pyramids!

3. Dvonn: My favorite of the Gipf series. I love how the board collapses on itself. The endgame never plays out how you think it will, providing a neat challenge.

4. Volcano: This is another excellent Icehouse game.

5. Hyle 7: Betcha haven't heard of this one! This is quite the odd, little obscure gem. There are lots of opportunities for clever moves in this game. Players that are good at spotting patterns will do quite well. Too bad I’m not, although I enjoy trying!

Slackin'

by Susan Rozmiarek
My poor little gaming blog has been neglected lately. I’ve been playing loads of games this summer, but for some reason I just haven’t felt like writing about them. I’ve gotten a little burned out, I reckon. A lot of my computer time has been filled instead with biking, reading and gardening. However, my family and I leave for Gulf Games tomorrow for a week of gaming and socializing with great friends. Our suitcases are packed and I can hardly wait! I’m sure that once I return, I won’t be able to hold back from blogging about the games I played. So, stay tuned!

Coming soon...

by Ed Rozmiarek
Watch this space.