Pretentious Board Games

I am back from Salt Con. Here are the highlights: I played a bunch of games which I had never played before. Here are my thoughts on them: Machi Koro: This game was very similar to Settlers of Catan. It was slightly better that the aforementioned game (which I don't like very much), but not entirely horrible. There was a better ability to control your own destiny Council of Verona : This game was excellent. I had read the rules before the con, and decided to play the game at the con to see how much I liked it. After having played it I bought it (those who know me know that I am not really that likely to buy things right off the bat (so that is a large endorsement for me)). I would definitely recommend it to anyone that liked Love Letter, Avalon, or Coup. Get Bit: It was pretty fun. I would try it again. Walk the Plank : This game was very fun. I would definitely play it again. It has the ability to be moderately strategic, but you have to plan your moves in advance, and yo...

Tomorrow is SaltCon. My current plan is as follows: Attend all of Friday and Satuday Play some games (Caverna, Glass Road, Eminent Domain, Rialto, Walk the plank, Belfort, Council of Verona, Get Bit, Milestones, Robots on the Line, perhaps some Two Rooms and a Boom) Help out some (working in the game library and as a game teacher) Do the math trade (and get some cool games) Perhaps talk to some publishers (If I am lucky - apparently I am bad at getting people to email me back and set up appointments) Attend Prototype Alley (I think I am going with Cook the Books. More on that later.) Watch Ion awards Visit various workshops It should be fun. About the Prototype Alley: The total vote count (including all my responses from my different sources) was: 3 Dancing Robots, 4 Creative Accounting, 2 Collusion. I am going to go with Creative Accounting for one additional reason: Creative Accounting is not really play-testable as a 2 player game, and I have played Dancing Robots wi...

I am getting ready for SaltCon's Prototype alley , but can't figure out which game I should bring. Which one would you be most likely to want to play (given brief descriptions and rules): Dancing Robots : A game where you draft part and dance cards to build the ultimate dancing robot. You need to balance concerns to build a good robot that can dance a lot of moves. Finally, you must defeat all the competition in a judged dance off. 2-4 players, 20-40 minutes Collusion : A game where you buy and sell goods in an attempt to make more money than others through price fixing and undercutting. Alliances can be formed but no agreement is binding. 2-8 players, 10-40 minutes Creative Accounting : A team game where you are either a bean counter who tries to cook the books to give your company an unfair business advantage or a whistleblower who is trying to catch companies cooking the books. It is sort of Werewolf like, but there is no player elimination. 3-12 players, 10-30 minut...

I forgot to post my math trade results: Gives Receives 1. Bang! The Bullet! Dominion 2. Ninja Versus Ninja N.E.W. Nano Engineered War 3. 25$ gift card to Amazon Pandemic 4. Puerto Rico Dominant Species: The Card Game Dominant Species: The Card Game Promo Card Set 5. 25$ gift card to Amazon Arkham Horror 6. Fortress America Cosmic Encounter 7. Blokus Bohnanza 8. Star Wars: Epic Duels Eminent Domain I am pretty happy about the results. Most of the games I am trading away I didn't play so much, and the games that I am getting sound pretty cool. I am pretty stoked about Eminent Domain. It seems like it will be a pretty fun game.

I finished my first read through of all of the rules. I have not yet read all of them enough to feel comfortable playing them all. (Also, I was unable to find the rulebooks for a lot of them online.) The Following seemed to be impossible to find the rules for: Misty Ruins Other World Stadium Stella Nova: Journey of the Magi Superpowers The Demise of Dr. Frankenstein UFO Hunter Where Chickens Dare! Here are my thoughts on the others: Paradise Fallen: Seemed to be fairly simple to understand. More examples of cards would be nice. The game felt fairly simple, but it seemed like play might uncover some hidden complexity Rialto: A fun sounding game. I will probably play this one time or more at the con. SlapShot: it is a hockey game. There seems to be some randomness to it, but also the possibility of winning through strategy. It is possible that I found some old rules for this because it seemed very old. Space Sheep: a simple game that could be fun based on...

I have begun to read all of the rule books for the "Play to Win" games for SaltCon. I am not yet though all of them, but I figure that writing down my current thoughts might prove useful to myself in the future (and perhaps interesting to others right now.) I have not played all these games. My reviews are based on the rule book alone. I decided to read the rule books in an alphabetical order. Here are my thoughts: Argosy: I didn't get through the rule book during my first attempt. It seems very cluttered. I intend to go back and read it again later. Baldrick's Tomb: Seemed pretty straightforward. Not really my style of game, but fairly well explained. Belfort: After having read the rule book I want to play the game. I will definitely look to play this one at Salt Con. Bellwether: Another rulebook that was very cluttered. I didn't make it through this one on the first try either. Coconuts: looks fun, but dexterity games are not my style usually. Council o...

For all of you board gamers in Utah: if you are not yet planning on going to SaltCon, I would encourage you to go. It is going to be really cool. I just went to a training for being a game librarian, and they're going to have all sorts of games that anyone can check out  to play at the con. There will be a play to win section where you can play and be entered to win a copy of the game that you played. Lots of publishers will be there as well, and they will also do the Ion award judging there. You should go. In other news I printed up a new copy of creative accounting. This new copy of creative accounting has pictures and colors and the accountants are now called Bean Counters and the Auditors are now, Whistle blowers. I hope that these changes will allow it to be slightly less confusing. Perhaps this will be the game that I will present at the prototype alley at salt con.

Last night we played a game of creative accounting which could have gone better. The biggest problem was having six children with us when we were going over the rules. One good thing that came out of the game was the fact that accountant and auditor look enough alike to cause confusion when distracted. I have updated the names of the roles to bean counter and mole accordingly. Also I will make cards with color to help the game move along more quickly. Another thing that happened yesterday during  work was our first games of Avalon with Lancelot. He changes the game. I am not sure if it is for good or ill, but he definitely changes it.

Over the past few days we have been playing some more "creative accounting". I still haven't gotten in a three player game, but we have played a fair amount of two and four to six player games. It seems like the cut off for two companies might want to be at six players. That decision hasn't been made yet for sure, but it seems like a good place. With two players it is mostly a game about second guessing your opponent, and it ends up playing similar to paper scissor rock (sigh). Cook the books > play it safe > audit. With four players the game is pretty hard for the auditor. It is possible that I should make the scoring different (something like the more book cookers that are caught on an audit the more points the auditor gains). If I do that then perhaps the book cooking should be scored the same. (The game would have a whole new scoring system, but the remainder of the game would stay the same) I entered SaltCon's Prototype alley. I am still trying ...

We have been playing games of the game that I came up with at 1AM a few days ago (which is currently being called both 'Cook the Books' and 'Creative Accountants') fairly often recently. It is interesting to have everyone at work really interested in a game that I created. Usually my co-workers don't all like games that I made because I like to insert a lot of math into games, and this one is pretty math light. There have been a lot of changes over the three days that we have been playing it. Some of the changes include: Removing Company B for small numbers of players (We are not yet sure where the cut off lies, but with 6 players 1 company is still an interesting game) Changing it so that there is always 1 accountant for small numbers of players (and always two accountants for large numbers.) The rules are a little out of date, but they can be found  here  (I plan to update them, but have not at the time that I post this). Also: I have been getting ready...

I woke up again at 1 AM. There was no dream this time - just a game. A co-worker threw out ideas for a game a few weeks ago and I was mulling them around in my head for a while (while I was not working very much on anything else). The current rules follow: Cook the Books: Two companies try to cook their books to improve their perceived values and attract investors. Auditors try to catch them at it. 2-12 players Job cards (unless noted, job cards are played face down): All job cards have a company. Half of them are company A and the other half are company B Auditor: You can play any card including audit cards. You win if you catch either company cooking the books twice. Accountant: You can play any card except for audit cards. You win if your company cooks the books without getting caught three times. (In case of a tie, you have to cook the books once more than the other company did.) Hippie Accountant: You are an Accountant, however no-one suspects you of secretly being an...