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Monday, January 24, 2005
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Latter Half 2004 Game Purchases Reviewed
These are the games we purchased in the latter half of 2004 and our general feelings towards them:
Hansa (game profile)
 I played this at "That Boardgaming Thing" (an all-weekend board game convention of sorts) back in September. I was hooked on the first round and bought it the same weekend from a merchant at the event.
The game consists of setting up markets in various Scandinavian cities, procuring goods, and then selling said goods for victory points or using them to set up new markets.
On your turn, you get three action points to use for purchasing the goods, moving the ship to another city, or replenishing the goods markers. You can also earn extra action points between turns when an opponent purchases a good from a city where you have the majority of markets. A certain number of action points and goods markers can also be saved for your next turn.
The movement of the ship is integral, as you may only take action in a city where the ship takes port, and only one action can be performed per city.
The winner is the person who has a combination of the most revenue from goods sales and most strategic market presence at the end of the game.
The beauty of the game lies in the balance of the actions. If you ignore setting up your markets, you'll eventually have nowhere to sell your goods and you won't be able to take advantage of the free goods you'll get when you have majority market presence. If you focus too heavily on the markets, you'll give up your chance to get the best goods in the lot.
There's also a little meta-game of trying to make your opponents have to pay to replenish the goods tokens. Someone will eventually have to do it, but nobody wants to spend their action points on it -- they're simply too valuable.
All said and done, it's a nice mid-level tactical game. The board and wooden bits make for a nice tactile experience, and the game seems well-balanced for 2, 3 or 4 players.
The good: Fairly short with interesting decisions.
The not-so-good: Not so sure about its long-term replay value with 2 players.
Meg rates this one a 7/10 and I rate it an 8/10.
Dschunke (game profile)
Another game about boats and trading, this meatier strategy game takes place in the waters of the far east.
 The object of this game is to bring home the most yen by bidding on market wares and making your market presence known on the 5 different boats.
On your turn, you have the choice of placing crates on boats, taking stock in various goods, or just taking yen straight from the bankers. One of the twists of the game is that you get to take more stock cards or more gold on the boats where you have more of a market presence (indicated by your colored crates). On the flip side, you may not have so many choices, since when someone takes an action (such as placing crates on a boat) that action is made unavailable to the rest of the players.
There is a depth to this game that isn't quite Puerto Rico, but is a few steps ahead of vanilla Settlers.
The good: A lot of tough decisions. A good amount of depth without being a brain-burner.
The not-so-good: Can be hard for 'newbies' to grasp at first; can suffer from analysis paralysis.
Meg and I both rate this one a 9.
Circus Flohcati, aka 'Flea Circus' (game profile)
In the words and accent of Monty Python: And now for something completely different!
This one has been getting a lot of play in the house recently due to its brevity and ease of explanation and play.
What's in the box: 89 cards: 80 of which are the numbers 0-7 in 10 colors; 9 of which are special action cards.
What you've got to do: Collect cards in sets of three for laying down (10 points apiece) and/or high numbers in your hand (everyone scores their highest valued card in each color at the end) and/or one card of each color to end the game (called a 'gala' -- declare it and get another 10 points).
How it works: All players begin with no cards. On your turn, you can either take a card in the pile (all cards are available) or flip cards until A) you find one that you want or B) you get 'burned.' If you get burned first, you do not get a card.
So there's a 'push your luck' factor that makes it fun to goad your opponents into turning over 'just one more card.' It also makes it tense for you when you're looking for that one color to complete your set.
The good: Short, light filler game that's easy to teach and easy to play.
The not-so-good: The non-gamer friends to which you taught the game won't want to put it away and play a meatier one. Hard-core gamers will tire of this quickly.
Meg rates this one a 8 and I rate it a 7.
All said and done, these are some good games which will get/have gotten a lot of play in our house. If you have any questions about these games, feel free to email me at gaming AT dreifuss DOT org.
Note: All ratings are out of a total score of 10. Rating guidelines (pulled from www.boardgamegeek.com) can be found here.
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Thursday, January 20, 2005
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2004 Year In Gaming
  Two-thousand four was a good year for gaming in the Dreifuss household. Although we had some low numbers in the second quarter, things picked up in the second half. Click on the games played graphic for more details (all games played for 2004).
I think that I purchased fewer games in 2004 than any other year since I entered the hobby. I believe this has a lot to do with my fairly recent debut as a father. But hey, I'm grooming a new gamer as we speak. :)
Actually, I believe that the slowdown in purchases is a good thing. We just moved to a house in October, and now my space for game storage is actually a bit smaller. I now have a game closet instead of the spacious shelves that I had before. But I believe it's better to be a more discerning game shopper than to get rid of duds later.
COMING UP: Reviews of Recent Game Purchases
Game on,
Bert
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