Pretentious Board Games

On Tuesday I went to the Layton BGDG meeting a bit early and played a few games before the meeting started. I got some good feedback, and thought that I would record it here. Deception: The game should be bigger. When you lose armies, you should gain things to offset the loss of armies (abilities?) Secret goals? More players? - attack the people near you only Grab the Loot: Calculate scores differently - add greed cards into everyone's loot to simplify it. Make a game over card to add to the bottom of the greed deck. Add to the rules the "do everything that you can" rule, so that when an ability is impossible, you still get to use it Double sided greeds that are rotatable Record scores to see if they are too swingy, and recalculate to make them tighter Slots should not be the same Make players have a secret treasure (or greed) that other players do not know about. Spend your loot for abilities. Spend treasure to flip up a card? Break the scoring t...

I just played Akrotiri for the second time, and I think that I should write a review of it. Akrotiri: 2 players, about 30 minutes This game combines multiple mechanics: tile laying, pick up and deliver, and secret goals. During the game you are playing as ancient Greek explorers who are trying to discover the locations of forgotten temples based on clues that you were given in ancient maps. I first played the game right after it came out, and told myself that my wife would enjoy it. I never saw it in a store, so I never got it until a recent BGG math trade. The game starts with a large tile (the island of Thera) being placed in the center, and everyone receiving starting maps and goals. The maps are cards that give you requirements for building temples (I will explain more about that later - it is the coolest part of the game to me). Goals are things like "Score 2 points for each of your Temples that are on an island with a volcano", or "Score 2 points for each...

We played "Grab the Loot!" at the BGDG tonight. The feedback I received was excellent. Since I just redesigned it from the ground up, I was really expecting big changes to come from this playtest, and I got what I was expecting. Here are my notes - and what I think about them right now: "Swap with another player" fix verbiage - Swap with the captain, swap with a player, and trade with a player are all possible actions. There should be three verbs, not two. There are not strategic decisions (all are tactical) - This one hurt, however I took it graciously and considered it as a call to increase the strategic decisions that are available in the game. Taken that way, it gives me something to work with, and I will do it. Treasure scarcity is not felt - I can easily fix this by making fewer treasures. Swapping between players should be more common - This is also an easy fix, and a great idea. Player interaction is king in this type of game. Later revealed gree...

On Friday my wife and I played Akrotiri for the first time in a few years. It is a really fun two player game. We were both doing well until the end when I pulled ahead to win by a large margin. I usually lose to my wife in such games, so this was a surprise ending. We had a fun time, and will probably play more in the near future. Yesterday we played Hanabi at lunch, and we lost all three games. It is fun to play a cooperative game with these guys (since they usually love traitor mechanic games). They liked it so much that we played a game at lunch again today. We played another game of "Grab the Loot!" last night, and also today at lunch. The game (at lunch) took 23 minutes, and people seemed to like the new changes. Dwayne (who is usually not happy to play one of my games twice in a row) even wanted to play a second game immediately. That is a win if I ever saw one. In this retheme I made changes that were much larger than I usually do when I am retheming things. I ...

This last weekend was SaltCon. It was pretty great. I got 11 new games, played about that many games which I hadn't played before, and met a lot of great people. Thursday I presented The Age of Vikings to the judges for the Ion Award. It didn't go very well, so I wasn't surprised when (on Saturday) it was announced that I didn't win. I went into the finalist judging with presentiments, because Dan announced that the highest scoring game scored an average of an 8, and that matched my highest score (which means that my average was lower than that). I had also talked to another of the finalists, and he said that he had gotten calls from two of the judges asking for more info about his game. Fortunately I held back on submitting Terran League of Defense Robots this year. I have made so many good changes to it since I submitted all of my games that I know that it will have a much better chance next year. I got to play the game that won the Ion Award this year - Paloo...