by nāt
This is the part of the web-blog entry in which I make uninspired comments about the current month that it is. But what if I told you this web-log entry was different? What if I told you that I was going to turn expectations on their unsuspecting heads and throw convention down a deep, dark pit of crazy, kooky uncertainty? That I'd buck tradition and subvert the established status quo and not mention the word July even once? Override the norm in order to ignore the pleading masses and their dependence on the habitual comforts of vapid discussion regarding how it can't already be this late in this particular year but would you look at the calendar it is, it really is?You'd probably call me a liar, and that'd be a fair enough cop. Wow, it's July already! Unbelievable!
Also, I played some games.
Rocca Rails
When I was growing up, my mother would leave out jewelry catalogs with certain sparkling gemstones circled in permanent marker, the words "ME WANT" printed directly below. The messages were for my father, but everyone in the family knew it was her way of saying "Ha ha, It Is a Joke, But Also Not." This intentionally crude style of passive-aggressive communication allowed my mother not only to maintain an air of humorous irreverence in regards to materialism, but also acted as a gentle prod in the right direction, were my father so inclined to spend exorbitant sums on anniversary gifts or birthday presents. The crazy thing is, the system worked. My father appreciated the fact that he wasn't wasting money on the wrong thing, and my mother would receive a new pair of earrings or a pretty necklace from time to time. It got to the point where "ME WANT" was a perfectly acceptable reaction to non-essential items, just as long as the user was aware that there was a 89.3% chance it wasn't in the budget and never would be.
I mention this anecdote because the "ME WANT" response is still alive and strong within me, even in the privacy of my own adult home with no other family members around, half-spurred by the abhorrent need to fill various voids in life with inconsequential materialism, the other half by rote. It was in this way, in front of a computer screen, that I quite instinctively mouthed the words directly after stumbling upon the tiny Japanese card game Rocca Rails. I admit, my immediate need to obtain a copy was fueled mainly by the overwhelming amounts of twee emanating out from it, but also because I am a grown man gainfully employed and can spend my money in as foolish a method as I see fit.
It's a dead simple little game; a single, solitary hot wing in terms of of meat being present on bones. UNO on rails, as it were, but the real charm comes from, well, it not being UNO for starters, but really mainly the fact that its cards are illustrated in an oh-so adorable isometric fashion. They're placed and stacked slightly on top of each other to create a supremely satisfying three-dimensional effect, little cuboid sections of landscape congealing together to lengthen train tracks down and to the right or left of a central starting point. There are colors to match and a die to roll and more cards to draw, but all of that pales in comparison to its charming table presence. It's a novelty item, no two ways about it, an unconscionably cute crowning piece in a board game collection to bring out and show off from time to time. Did I spend more than I should have in securing a copy? Most likely. Will I play it on a regular basis? Probably not. But am I glad to have it, regardless, and has it very temporarily assuaged my burning desire to obtain physical things in a desperate bid to calm the raging uncertainties in my soul? You betcha. It's not often you can turn such a fervid ME WANT into an I GOT.
Dynasties: Heirate & Herrsche
Gosh, this one had been on the Hotly Anticipated List ever since it was announced, despite knowing very little about it, despite the lack of English language information, despite the fact that the artist appears to have mistaken Philip II's beard as the biggest jawline this side of Bruce Campbell.** Why, you ask? Why, I reply, because of designer Matthias Cramer! Cramer's responsible for a whole handful of enjoyable games: Glen More, Rococo, and Kraftwagen being amongst them.
Thankfully, as one might come to discover from this particular web-log entry, things living up to high expectations seems to be a common thing for July, because it turns out Dynasties is a very good game. What's more, it might very well be my favorite Cramer title to date. This is due to a large number of things, some of which will be worked into a list, because we all love lists.
1.) I Split You Choose: Dynasties incorporates this element into several different parts of the board, and it really, really works. I love the grueling task of having to divide a group of five resources into piles of three and two, knowing that I won't be the one who gets first dibs. I could ensure that at least one of the piles has the two or three that I desperately need, but there's always the chance that my opponent will take it, leaving me with nothing useful at all. It's a painful yet amusing game of compromise that brings a lot of uncertainty and challenge to fulfilling your goals.
2.) Mawwaige!: It's really fun marrying off your little family meeples with other family meeples, securing whole entire swaths of the board via consensual or shotgun weddings, maintaining area majorities by having children at just the right moment, forcing your way into dynasties at the last second through pure political clout. It captures what I loved about the theme in Signorie and distills it down into an even more enjoyable experience. Plus, it makes me actually OK with the back and forth tussle of area majority, which is really saying something.
3.) Lovely Board, That: Dynasties wins Most Beautiful Depiction of Super Dull Europe-y Map. I mean, take a look at the board. It's gorgeous!
4.) Luck: There's a fair amount of luck to be stomached with Dynasties, but ultimately, I think it works. Some games you simply won't draw what you absolutely need, and that will be that. Other games, you'll coast along on a comfortable cushion of good karma, grabbing up all the right resources and scoring cards you need for a considerable victory. As much as I prefer my dry Euro games filled to bursting with pure, uncut stratagem, I do appreciate a bit of luck now and then. The monkeywrenches can be infuriating, debilitating, exhilarating, polarizing, but you also can't argue that luck is a perfect scapegoat for a crummy performance. Yeah. That's why I lost. Both times.
Imperial Settlers
The more I play Imperial Settlers, the more I fall in love with its engine-building. It might be my favorite example of it, in fact. The feeling of starting with a paltry sum of two or three goods and a few cards, working slowly but surely to play out more and more buildings, amassing greater and greater piles of resources until by the last round you've managed to string along action after action after action, every one of which provides even more opportunities to prolong the game and expand your empire. It's a fantastic snowball effect, and just about the only complaint I have with the game is waiting on others who are trying to do the same. Knowing exactly what you want to do next but having to wait until your other opponents take their turns can be downright excruciating, especially in a game that rewards you for lining up long strings of multi-step, self-perpetuating plans. Oh man, other people, am I right? Heck, I'd win games if it weren't for other people! The obvious answer to this drawback is to simply not invite other people to play your game, instead staying inside with the curtains drawn, trying out the solo variant.
While the solo variant insists on razing to stay alive, I don't find it as reprehensible as it is in a multiplayer game. For one, it's only attacking an AI, instead of another human being with feelings and hopes and dreams, and it's also guaranteed that you'll be crushed by this faceless automaton if you don't reciprocate. The solo version of Imperial Settlers is great for a quick-fix of engine-building, but the officially sanctioned Print-n-Play Campaign mode is really where the solitaire experience starts to shine. Imperial Settlers campaign mode allows you to add a "Legacy" element to multiple games, introducing costly but lucrative provinces to manage, special events and challenges to weather, upkeep to maintain, and Civilization-style technological advancements to add to your faction. All of the additions do a bang-up job of making you feel like an ever-expanding empire. With each victory, new benefits are granted, but with each new benefit, costs are increased. Since the playtime is drastically reduced with only one person playing, the campaign mode makes for the perfect nightly 45-minute challenge that's both easy to track and fun to revisit.
Le Havre
There seem to be two very distinct styles of Rosenberg design in the wild. The first, and earliest, appears to be based on Success Despite Restriction. The second, and most recent, centers itself around Success Despite Profundity. There's a reason people either lovingly or scornfully refer to Agricola as "Misery Farming." It's the same reason that the Agricola vs. Caverna debate rages on. There's a specific type of board gamer that delights in overcoming obstacles, while the other type prefers a more open-ended "sandbox" environment in which to experiment. I can understand the benefits and drawbacks to both. I'm not here to argue the superiority of one one versus the other, but it's no secret that I personally enjoy Profundity far more than its Restrictive predecessor. To me, Le Havre falls into the Restrictive category, though I'm sure there will be fans crawling out of the woodwork to tell me why I'm wrong.
It'd appear that Le Havre is one of those games that demands a second play before I can fully ground myself in its world. Figure out its ins and outs. Grasp the subtleties, pinpoint and define its various paths to success. Problem is--as is the case with most games with similar demands of multiple revisits--I don't wanna. Generally speaking, I love Uwe Rosenberg games. I love that he implements and reimplements, iterates and reiterates familiar mechanisms and elements from his past ventures into new and exciting titles. The upcoming A Feast for Odin is my most highly anticipated game for 2016. But for as big of a fan of Rosenberg as I am, I can still recognize when one of his games is not for me. I suppose the problem with having multiple games with so many similar elements is that they can never truly exist on their own. You'll always have people comparing and contrasting them with each other.
It's difficult for me to solidify what it is in a game that causes me to dislike it. My negative experiences (which are thankfully few and far between) come from gut feelings, are often times born of some weird, disconnected intuition, or simply exist as vague frustrations with sums rather than parts. That said, I'm rather embarrassed to admit that my core complaints with Le Havre stem mainly from the fact that it isn't Ora et Labora. I really love resource conversion. It's very much a form of that beloved engine-building I so enjoy waxing rhapsodic about. I find the resource conversion in Ora et Labora to be handled in a really satisfying way, with a bit of worker placement, a bit of spatial puzzle, and a bit of careful planning for specific windows of opportunity. There are very few fees or harvests to keep in mind and thus what you get is a less hindered form of resource conversion than what exists in Le Havre. Le Havre is business management with resource conversion thrown in. It has feeding of employees, private ownership of buildings, and *shudder* loans and usury to contend with. Amidst the hopes of turning cows into leather into furniture into cold, hard victory points there are a myriad little roadblocks in the way. Maybe it's the fact that you can focus on converting just about anything you'd like in OeL, whereas Le Havre has several very specific, very mandatory conversion milestones everyone must focus on in order to proceed along to a higher phase of efficiency. If you don't get the building that allows you to go after reliquaries in OeL, no big deal. There are half a dozen other little chits to chase after. If you miss the figurative (and literal) boat for steel-making in Le Havre, it's several excruciating turns of watching your opponents prosper while you have no choice but to wait your turn. It's the same position I find myself taking when considering "acquired tastes." Why bother acquiring a taste when there are so many other tastes that taste good from the outset?
The King of Frontier
I don't pretend to be a licensed practitioner of aesthetic critique, but lots of Japanese games have a distinct look. You can see it with Minerva, or Yokohama, and now with The King of Frontier, as well. It's not particularly user-friendly. It's downright claustrophobic at times, with text bunched together and icons shoved in wherever there's room left over. There's a vague sensation of mid-1990s chutzpah floating about, all boxy and chunky and busy with textures and gradients and not particularly self-conscious the way 2010s design is all blatantly solid colors and LOOK-AT-ME-BEING-SIMPLE minimalism. It can be difficult to navigate and it can be more or less fugly, but it's still somehow alluring in spite of itself. Maybe it's just the charm and intrigue of foreign exoticism. Maybe I'd hate the same look if it came from my own home country. Be that as it may, I foster a soft spot for these kinds of Japanese import games, and The King of Frontier is no exception.
The King of Frontier is a fusion of Carcassonne, Walnut Grove, San Juan, and xkcd. It takes the core essence of each of these things and folds them all into one rather simple tile-laying game, and I appreciate that. Players attempt to fill their 4x5 grids with landscape tiles, completing resource cube-producing areas of wheat, stone, wood, and cities, all while using these resources to buy and build special building tiles and score points. Each turn, the leader declares one of four actions, does a slightly better version of that action, then allows the remaining players to follow by doing a slightly lesser version of that action if they can or wish. It works-- if you have the appropriate fan-translations of all the various special buildings. There isn't anything ground-breaking or novel about the game except the fact that it managed to incorporate a number of fun mechanisms from other games into its own fun self.
Broom Service: The Card Game
An airy light filler that captures nearly everything I like about Broom Service and does away with all the frustrating tidbits that I don't. I like: the brave/cowardly push-your-luck element. It's there in the card game. In fact, I'd say that's all that's there. Players collect sets of colored potions by playing potion cards bravely (the side with multiple potions) or cowardly (the side with only one potion). Playing cowardly will always net you your one potion, but taking a chance on brave only provides you with the multiple potion count if you're the only or last one to do so. The roles from the board game are replaced with different colors of potions to collect, and gone is the oft-infuriating pick-up-and-deliver movement and blocking of the board. It's not that I don't enjoy Broom Service, it's just that the Card Game manages to deliver (har-har) only the best parts in one-eighth the time, so I call it a success.
Scythe
I now understand the love for Stonemeier Games. What's that? you ask, You mean to say you didn't beforehand?! Oh, you know me. I buy games based mainly on the fact that they're Japanese and hard-to-find. I can't be seen going along with too popular an opinion. In fact, I'd always found the rampant praise and fanboyism of Stonemeier Games to be somewhat grating on the nerves. I'd played Euphoria and Between Two Cities and found them both modestly entertaining, and had no real interest in ever trying Viticulture despite its pretty package. It's not that I didn't believe people when they went on and on about Stonemeier Kickstarter campaigns, it's just that I had no real personal connection with the glowing experiences, and no real reason to join the bandwagon. That is, until Jakub Rozalski came into the picture.
At the risk of sounding the full-blown hipster, I am compelled to mention that I'd seen Rozalski's art before the whole Scythe ordeal. Someone at some point had "linked" me to some "pics" of it via the "I.N.T.E.R.N.E.T."*** (as youth today are wont to do), and I'd very much loved it. It reminded me of James Gurney's Dinotopia books with the classical depictions of hulking fantastical leviathans amidst humans in antiquated garb, or even Chris Van Allsburg's picturebooks, presenting somewhat ominous, always mysterious illustrations that prompted the viewer into fabricating his or her own stories of what was going on. Naturally, when news of a board game utilizing Rozalski's work surfaced, I got a little excited. Y'know, along with the 7 million other board gamers doing the same. So mainstream.
For nigh on nine whole months I weathered the excitable titters and internettal ramblings of fellow board gamers who couldn't wait to get the game onto their tables. Nine months of hype I endured. I tell you expecting couples on Facebook posted less about their unborn babies than the amount of flowery prose I heard about Scythe. It was impossible to ignore. I was buffeted from all sides. It was realistic resin components this and cool metal coins that and LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT BOARD, WOULDJA?! I promised myself I wouldn't succumb, wouldn't give in. That I wouldn't allow myself to get excited at the mere prospect of a game I had never played and wouldn't be able to try for another XX weeks. I'd been burned before by the irresistible hype factory of other Kickstarter projects. Games that would've otherwise been perfectly enjoyable experiences had perished to the colossal myths they'd had to live up to, withered away right before my eyes as they failed to match the impossible standards I'd administered in advance. I wouldn't let it happen with Scythe. It meant nothing to me, and thus had nothing to lose.
And then, after countless informative and regular email updates, constant communication and clarification and tracking numbers and photos from manufacturers, it arrived (not that I cared). It was a heavy box (even though weight has nothing to do with anything). It was a beautiful box, with a little personalized number on it (except ten thousand other people had received pretty much the same thing). The little pieces inside were gorgeous, and the miniatures glistened, and the cards sparkled, and the endless Rozalski art emitted an ethereal glow like that briefcase scene from that one movie about pulp fiction literature****. Okay. So I was impressed. But that didn't mean diddly-squat in terms of actual gameplay.
So, naturally, I played it. And wouldn't you know, I liked it. More than I thought I would. Like, really liked it. The combat I was concerned about wasn't too miserable. The replayability seemed solid. The rules were intuitive. The decisions were meaningful. The asymmetric powers were neat. The little player mats were great fun. The race to place stars had been improved since Euphoria. The coinage was plinky. The pieces were chunky. The board extension was, in fact, enormous. All of it cohered together into one highly enjoyable board game with unparalleled production values and drop-dead gorgeous design. Who woulda thunk it? I mean, apart from the 7 million board gamers who spent nine months thunking it very much aloud (and over and across my head). Fine then, you got me. I suppose I should issue an apology to anyone I ever plugged my ears at, to those I consciously avoided, or whose heady claims I breezily scoffed upon. I'm sorry. You were right. Stonemeier Games is the be-all and end-all. Scythe is probably the harbinger of a new board game renaissance. Metal coins can be cool. Popularly held opinions of popularly anticipated board games are just as worthwhile as that obscure out-of-print Belarusian game about publishing anti-Stalinist newspapers in 1936. I admit defeat.
But I'm still not going to play Blood Rage with you.
Taluva
We all have guilty pleasures. For some, it's eating a carton of ice cream whilst sat in front of multiple episodes of incest-ridden, anti-hero-centric cable TV programs. For others, it's being able to get close enough to give little warning kicks to passing ground-pigeons. For some, it's peeling off that plastic coating sheet that covers the screens of recently purchased electronic devices. For others still it's being able to successfully pass off a naturalistic-sounding "heyyyyyy" when you temporarily forget the name of the person walking past you in the hallway. All give little rushes of adrenaline, cheap thrills that hold one over until one can learn to skydive or drag race or shout "I DON'T REALLY CARE" when a group of people start talking about lacrosse. My guilty pleasure is playing multiplayer board games by myself. It's not something I'm proud of. I wouldn't want to admit to doing it to just anybody, which is why I'm only telling you, in this extremely private area of the world wide public internet space. There's just something fun about playing the part of two or three people. Maybe it's the fact that no matter what, I'm guaranteed to experience a victory. Or maybe it's the fact that this might be the beginning stages of undiagnosed schizophrenia. Whatever the case may be, Taluva is a darn fine example of the perfect board game to play by yourself. Y'know. If you're into that kind of thing.
Taluva's ruleset is deceptively simple. That is to say, for so few things to keep track of, there's a heck of a lot of opportunity out on the board at any given time. On your turn, you lay a new tile either up or out, then build one of three types of buildings. The first person to build all of two types instantly wins, otherwise, once the tiles run out, whoever has managed to place the most temples, then towers, then villages wins. It's one of those classic-feeling games. Clean design with room for lots of interaction. You can really only ever do two things, but the way in which you do them, or rather, the things you do in order to do these two things most efficiently makes all the difference. Playing offensively is just as important as defending your territories, and as such, there's a healthy amount of tension that's maintained throughout the entire game. Volcanos can erupt to wipe out villages and set back progress. New terrain can be placed in clever ways to prevent or block unwanted presences. Expansion of villages can secure a greater hold while spreading out can divert attention.
It's such a beautiful game, too. There's something very attractive about seeing the island expand over the course of a game, little clusters of brightly painted huts and towers breaking out across lush, tropical landscapes. And the theme is pleasantly apparent for what is essentially an abstract racing game. The stacking and connecting of tiles really feels like you're creating a bigger and taller island out of the sea, watching the indigenous life thrive and relocate over centuries of volcanic activity. It speaks to the beauty of a game's design when I want to play it even when there are no others around to play it with me. Just don't tell Adlai, Beauregard, or Constance. They think they're real people.
* * *
Now's the part of the web-log entry where I attempt to wrap things up whilst giving credence to whatever upcoming month that it will be is going to be. Something about the weather, no doubt, as that really brings in the readers. ...But what if I refused to bend to the will of quotidian rigmarole and simply didn't? What if I closed our time together without ever mentioning that August is in the offing and that the weather is hot or something and humidity really is the worst? Take that, suffocating mundanity! I refuse to kowtow to your oppressive praxis! Down with tedium! Death to platitudinous guarantees! I reject the triteness and strive for almighty change!
Boy, how about that sport team, eh? They sure sported it up in regards to competing against the opposing force, huh? I should say they even sportsed it in a superior fashion, and will continue to do so for the duration of their sport term. Welp, 'til August! Stay cool and dry!
Until next time, happy games!
-nāt
* Using usernames in real life depresses me. Really good ones depress me because I wasn't the one to come up with them, and really bad ones, well, are really bad. One of my favorite things about avoiding the news nowadays is the fact that I don't have to hear depressing things like "The online shooting was witnessed by Twitchcast commentator 2BOOBZ4U_69, who said 'dat carnage was gay lel'." I suspect it will be a sad fact that our children's children's history books will include depressing phrases like "General jellybeanpawz led the ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Army in the 100 Years YouTube War." It's only a matter of depressing, depressing time.
**
*** On I.N.T.E.R.N.E.T., everything is an acronym, including I.N.T.E.R.N.E.T., which I can only assume stands for Internet Network Trans-Electronic Routing Number Ethernet Throng.
**** Ken Burns' A Complete History of Papyrus, Part XVI