Games I played at The Gathering, April 2008 The number of games may not match the listings - that's because of prototypes which I have deleted from this listing (but not from my own personal records!) Games which were new to me: 42 plays of 39 games. Animalia - Me 3.0, Others: 3.5, 3.5, 3.0. Neat little medici style game but with animals and chances to action special powers. Very neat and fast. I was quite impressed as were the others I played it with. Aquadukt (Schmidt) - Me 3.0, Others: 3.0, 3.0, 3.5 Rather nice game of placing houses and canals and irrigating your areas. There was quite a bit of luck, but it was enjoyable and tactical as well. Afterwards I thought of a tweak I would use to improve it and reduce the luck somewhat. I could see my rating going up with my tweaks. Aquaretto - Me 3.0, Others: 3.0, 2.5, 2.5. Another Zooloretto but with slightly different scoring methods and water based animals. It is decent enough, but did we really need this ? IMO it just isn't different enough. Big Points - Me 2.0, Others 1.5, 2.0. A very light game of taking wooden disks from a row and claiming other disks to get points at the end. It is harmless, but really not enough to write home about. A sort of watered down Tutankhamun, and less good than Verflixxt which it also reminds me of. Change Horses - Me 1.5, Others: 2.0, 2.0, 2.0. Rather poor lose the race horse racing game, but with nice bits. There was a little cleverness in the card play, but the turn order made too huge a difference, and the end result was fairly random - it must have been as I nearly won! Code Omega - Me 3.0, Others: 2.0, 2.0, 3.0, 2.0, 2.5 An Ubongo like game, but with strips you place onto a board, and try to make them have a solid line across all 4 of them. Not as clever as Ubongo, as there seems to be more trial and error rather than spatial awareness, but maybe that just comes with practice. Cold War: CIA vs KGB: Me 2.5, Others: 1.5. A light 2 player card game, with a Cold War theme, which for me was fun, but lasted too long, and Juliet really didn't like it. Die Saulen Von Venedig - Me 3.0, Others: 4.0, 3.5, 3.0. Another building Venice game. Definitely not the worst of them. It is a fun game, but there is a lot of picking who to give points to and some chaos with the cards. It played well with 4, and was enjoyable, but there was a potential kingmaker situation at the end. Exxit - Me 2.0, Others 4.0. An abstract game which is very clever with forcing moves, which jump pieces off the side of the board, and then you try to get the chance to extend the board in your colour where pieces jump off. Very unusual and very hard for me to work out what will happen in all but the simplest cases, and thus not really for me, but a good one for abstract games players to pick up. Fleet 1715 - Me 3.5, Others 3.5, 4.0. Nice logic puzzle game, which uses the traditional logic puzzle grid. I hadn't used one of these for a long time, and so failed to deduce all I should. Thus I have resolved to do a few logic puzzles in order to get up to speed so I can enjoy this game properly. It is from the same guy as Old Town (Stephan Riedel), and is rather good, and well designed, though many cards have errata or dodgy translations, which is a bit of a shame. Get Bit - Me 2.0, Others: 3.0, 1.5, 3.0. Daft little game with the movement system from Wurmeln tweaked a bit. There are very cool robot figures with removable arms and legs and a neat shark which tries to eat them. Very much a 'group think' game which isn't my thing. Hameln - Me 1.5, Others: 1.0, 2.0, I had been wanting to play this for quite a while, as I never got one at Spiel 07 (they sold out). However it was way way too chaotic. Despite an amusing theme (the Pied Piper) and some intriguing ideas I was very disappointed. Sadly you really have very little choice of what to do, and mostly it is entirely obvious, and your route forward is mostly all forced by what sex of children you draw. Really really great bits though. Hanging Gardens - Me 3.5, Others 2.5, 3.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.0, 2.5, 3.5, 3.0 This was the new game I played the most. It is fairly short (45 mins) but has a clever main mechanic of placing cards on top of each other in a clever way to expand your playable area and score for adjacent spaces. Hard to describe in a few words, but I like the puzzle aspect a lot. I played this three times over the week. It was one of the games which was getting a lot of play. High-Low (Blazing Aces) - Me 3.0, Others: 3.0, 3.0, 3.0. Light filler, quite nice, nothing special though, but does give some interesting choices. Standard deck card game in which players lay cards in two rows and can score for the highest or lowest poker hand in each row. Im Reich Der Jadegottin - Me 3.0, Others: 3.0, 3.0, 3.5, 3.0. A very light Entdecker in the jungle game. Not as good as standard Entdecker with my tweaks (from Das Neues Entdecker) and a lot lighter and with lots of luck. Not bad though. Jamaica - Me 2.5, Others: 2.0, 2.0. Light pirate game with some clever mechanics, but still very chaotic. One player rolls 2 dice and places them and then everyone plays a card which is activated by the dice. You collect gold, food and gunpowder and advance around the board in a sort of race collecting treasures on the way. Plenty of randomness in whether the dice suit your cards. Just Wait (Hangman Games) - Me 1.0, Others 1.5, 2.0 Random and dull rummy variant. Avoid. I guess if you really like rummy then this might be worth a look... Lascaux - Me 2.5, Others: 2.0, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5 Fun, but very chaotic game with much the same pay or drop out mechanic as Geschenkt, and with some nice twists, but also a daft scoring system that makes collecting sets all or nothing - a silly idea as you have relatively little control. It could be tweaked with a more lenient scoring system I guess... Leaping Frogs - Me 2.5. Fun game of throwing frogs onto a trampoline and then bouncing them onto lillypads. Daft, but fun. Mermaid Rain - Me 2.5, Others: 2.5, 2.5, 2.5 Japanese game which has some clever ideas - forming melds with card to get different powers during the game, and collecting treasure with an interesting movement and tile system, but the scoring of sets is really very random at the end, and not really planable for, and overwhelms previous scoring, which is a shame as the game up till then had much going for it. Metropolys (Ystari) - Me 2.5, Others: 2.0, 3.5, 2.5. Surprising game for Ystari to produce. A very abstract game of placing towers with a very clever bidding mechanism. However, with more than 2 players the problem of giving other players points is major, and is likely to be the deciding factor rather than what you manage to claim for yourself. With 2 players it could be better, but its not one for me. Ming Dynasty - Me 2.0, Others: 1.5, 2.0. A majorities game in which you have to plan routes and place people. Sort of a reverse Hermagor, but non intuitive and didn't mesh very well, as you need to plan carefully, but _before_ you get the cards to do the planning! Clever ideas, but for us it dragged, and unintentional blocking was sometimes an issue too. Disappointing as it looked good. Mr. Jack - Me 2.5, Others: 3.0 It is a clever game of trying to avoid giving info / gaining info, and then trying to capture / avoid capture depending on which side you are. It is very clever, with well worked out special abilities etc, but is also really an abstract movement and positioning game, which isn't a type of game I cope with well, so ultimately not for me. The choice of theme is also likely to be offputting to many (Jack The Ripper). Pandemic - A 3.5, Others: 1.5, 3.0, 3.0, 4.0, 3.5 The players are running a worldwide action team to treat and cure 4 diseases which threaten the world. It is entirely cooperative, and the game system runs the diseases, and boy can they spread! The players need to find cures for all 4 diseases before everything gets out of control. The game mechanics are straight forward but clever. Ultimately a lot depends on the way the cards come up, but that doesn't stop it being just plain enjoyable! Another game which was getting alot of play. I played it twice and have yet to beat the diseases. Pedal Power - A 3.0 This was actually a prototype for a second edition of the game. There is a first edition out there in very small numbers, but the designer is hoping to find a bigger publisher for a revised version. It is a cycle touring game. Portobello Market (Playroom) - Me 3.0, Others 3.5, 3.0. Quite an interesting game in which you place market stalls and have chances to get big scorings. There are some interesting tactical options. It felt slightly too unconstrained to be great or maybe a bit too abstract. Decent though. Qwirkle - Me 2.5, Others 2.5. Scrabble with shapes and colours (and no letters), and no special spaces, but a bonus for completing sets of 6 tiles. So essentially just matching colours and shapes and spotting the highest scoring places. You can play defensively sometimes, or try to set yourself up, but it does all rely on drawing useful tiles. Not in any way special, but it works and plays quite fast. Rattlesnake - Me 2.0. A very short game involving playing very strong magnets onto a board and trying not to make them come together or force other magnets off the board. If this happens you keep the offending magnets. First to get rid of their magnets wins. Ok, but there aren't enough magnets for the game to last long enough for the game to be determined by placement skill... A shame as it is a neat idea. Shanghaien (Abacus Spiele) - Me 1.5, Others 2.0. A light dice game in which you try to get cards, but with non-intuitive scoring systems, which reward just winning over winning a fight by miles and the dice rolling offers little control or planning. Not for me, though some people seemed to like it. I'd stick to Roma instead. Stone Age (HiG) - Me 3.5, Others 3.5, 3.0, 3.5. An action drafting type game with a few twists such as some spaces several people can put multiple meeples onto, but up to a limit. Also to get your resources you have to roll dice with different resources requiring different base values - getting multiples of the base amount gets you multiple resources. The buildings and cards you buy work well enough, but a few are too easy to fulfil compared to others, and the dice rolling is a bit random. It is still good though, even with these imperfections. I will be keen to play again, but with average dice, and possibly some other tweaks. This was getting a very large amount of play at The Gathering. 10 Days In Asia - Me 3.5, Others 4.0, 3.5. A nice variant of Europa Tour with railroads, ships and aeroplanes, which felt quite hard, but I still enjoyed (and lost). Terra Nova (Winning Moves USA) - Me 2.5, Others 3.0, 2.0. Interesting fairly abstract game of enclosing areas. A little too abstract to be really my cup of tea, but still good. I suspect quite a few people will enjoy this much more than I did. Ticket To Ride - Nordic Countries - Me 4.0, Others 3.5, 3.5, This is very much like Switzerland, being mainly for 3. It is good and I would like to obtain a copy, but sadly that is difficult. The rules do differ from Switzerland with one huge connection and rules for handing in non matching cards in multiples to replace cards you can't seem to get otherwise. Ticket To Ride Card Game - Me 2.0, Others 2.5, 2.5. This can be played two ways. One with a very major memory element (a complete no-no for me) or ina way which becomes very fiddly looking in your pile of collected cards comparing with your tickets. Personally I would rather play the board game every time. Trapper - Me 3.0, Others: 3.0, 3.0, 3.5, A nice light to middleweight game which is rather good, with some interesting choices. It is about getting canoes and filling them with animals, with a clever tile mechanism, and cards used to determine possible actions. This one could go up in my ratings, though there is a fair degree of randomness in what opportunities you get. Voltage (Mattel) - Me 2.0, Paul W 2.0. Little two player card game of manipulating scores on either side of the board. We got one rule wrong which we corrected half way through. I don't think this rule would have helped, however. Getting the right cards, and the chance to draw the change cards is key. My pick of the games which were new to me: Aquadukt Code Omega Fleet 1715 Hanging Gardens Pandemic Stone Age 10 Days In Asia Ticket To Ride - Nordic Countries Trapper Games I had played before 26 plays, 18 different games. Agricola - Me 5.0, Others: 4.0, 3.5. My current favourite, and I was teaching it to the others, who enjoyed it a lot too. Farming themed action drafting game with different cards to ensure players have different paths to victory each game. Can't Stop - Me 4.0, Others 3.5, 3.0, 3.0, I played this classic game three times during The Gathering - once in the tournament. I won one of them, but that wasn't in the tournament... Coloretto - Me 3.5, Others: 3.5, 3.5, 2.0, 3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 3.5. Played twice during The Gathering. I introduced people to the expansion, which went down well. Galaxy Tracker - Me 3.5, Others: 3.5, 3.5, 3.5. We played this with more than the normal number of adventure cards for additional excitement / chaos. This was achieved, with plenty of ship damage occuring and one ship even being rendered crewless. Great fun space game with simultaneous ship construction phase. Hermagor - Me 3.5, Others: 3.5, 4.0, 4.0. A very nice game, which plays very well. Players bid for goods tokens in a market in a clever way and then sell these goods moving around the land setting up shops. Plenty to think about and plan for, but keeps moving well. My favourite Mind The Move game by some way. Jenseits Von Theben - Me 3.5, Others: 4.0, 3.5, 3.5. This was the first time I had played the Queen edition of this great archaeology game, which really fits the theme brilliantly. Queen have done a splendid job with the production. I will 'upgrade' my original edition at some point. Only the very high luck factor in drawing treasures stops it being a favourite. La Strada - Me 3.5, Others: 2.0, 2.5, 2.0. A neat little network building game which I enjoy a lot, but it seems the others weren't quite as keen. Liar's Dice - Me 3.5. I played this 2 times - both in the tournament. It is a great dice game, and I'm sure you don't want to hear how I was robbed of the victory :-), so I'll stop here. Loopin' Louie - A 3.5 I played a number of games in the tournament, and it was good fun, but the rules played were very odd - once you have lost your coins you are still allowed to flip Louie - outrageous! Also you play several games, and the winner permanently loses a coin, the first player to win a round having started with just one coin wins - this seems a good idea, but with players not dropping out when they have no coins the game becomes a case of everyone picking on whoever is doing best, to such an extent that one time the player who had made a good flick the whole time winning because everyone else was less worried about him. Not my preferred gaming style! Lost Worlds - Me 3.5. We tried out a couple of the 1% books). The Man-Spider proved too much for the Three Armed Giant. Mykerinos - Me 3.5, Others: 4.0, 4.0, 4.0. Majorities game, which packs a lot into a short period, but I am increasingly convinced that some of the character cards are just too good, and could do with being toned down a little - something I intend to try out. Nugget (Blazing Aces) - Me 3.0, Others: 3.0, 3.0. Nice little card game in which you try to draft good poker hands. Fast playing and very quick - a decent filler. Octo (Reiner Knizia's Dice Games Book): Me 2.5. A quick dice filler - ideal for playing in the bar over a drink (which is what we did). Patrician - Me 2.5, Others: 2.5, 2.5. A quite short game of majorities with the game giving you relatively few choices as what card you play forces you to draw your next card and so on. I had wanted to give it another shot to decide on it. Suppenkasper - Me 3.0, Others: 2.0, 2.0, 2.5, 1.5. Neat card game despite the theme which is about binge and bust eating. The card play issues are interesting, and give choices about how to deal with each hand - always a good thing. However, it seems I appreciate it more than the others did. Take It Easy - Me 4.5, Others: 3.0, 2.5, 4.0, 4.0, 3.0. I played three games of this over the week. I managed to get 222 one time, which equalled my top score. Tichu: Me 4.5. We played a teaching game, and I was partnered with the beginner. He learnt a lot (which is another way of saying we lost). Still one of my very favourite games. Wurmeln - Me 2.5, Others: 3.0, 3.0, 3.0, 3.0. We played this simultaneous choice worm race game with a home made set. Cute, but I am not so fond of games where you have to try to match / not match other players' plays, especially when you don't really have any information to guide your choice.