Galaxy Trucker

Since I seem to be on a puzzle game kick, lets keep this rolling right along to another foray into puzzley board games.
Kids seems to be fascinated with space travel, idolizing Han Solo, Chewbacca and Captain Kirk's adventures into the big black void that exists being worlds. As we grow up we learn that space is actually pretty dangerous and not all that interesting anyways. We haven't found aliens, nor to we have numerous colonies on the outskirts of space full of futuristic pioneers like the ones in Firefly. Speaking of Firefly, wouldn't it just be cool to grab a junky ship and head out to the beyond to find your fortune? Doesn't that rekindle all those old fantasies and thoughts of adventure? Huh? Doesn't it?
Galaxy Trucker is your game then. The idea is that your a privateer on the outskirts of human civiliation, one of many that have come out seeking your fortune. Everybody starts with a general ship layout mat, and a starting crew cabin. From there, it's a race to grab the parts you need for your ship from a communal junkyard and assemble your "new" ship before time runs out. You've got limited amount of space to fit things like shields, guns, cargo storage, alien life support, more crew quarters, and engines. After your done building, your ship is subjected to a series of randomly selected trials, including pirates, slavers, combat zones, and meteor showers. You also can collect goods and money as you race the other players to the finish line.
It's a real romp through space. Obviously my favorite part of the games is the shipbuilding, which is very similar to another rather amusing game. There are many different ways to build your ship, from a fast cargo hauler to a slowmoving gunship. Its all based on personal taste and even your mood at the moment, and it's a real treat.
The part that most puzzle gamers really hate about Galaxy Trucker is the actual trucking itself. It's VERY random, and even a well-built ship can meet a gruesome fate. We've had some games where the only piece of the ship to make it home was a single crew compartment. It's hard seeing your creation get torn up, but I was one of those kids that build a lego ship for hours then sent it crashing into the floor just to see it happen. Building is a lot of fun, but seeing your ship getting humorously picked to pieces can also be entertaining. This is especially true if your drinking, as this game is light enough to be able to play while consuming moderate amounts of booze.
Galaxy Trucker is not a very deep game, and it's replay value is a little lower than others even with some expansions. Keep in mind that our group has played this game a LOT, and even after all this I still am entertained every time it hits the table. The game also requires that you be good-humored about the inevitably bad fate that's in store for most ships. If you're going to whine about getting screwed by bad luck, this game isn't for you. That said, I give it an 8 of 10 VP. This game is fun, has an awesome theme and lots of cool bits and pieces.
This game is kind of hard to find right now, and while a US or Canadian release is promised, it's still not happened yet. As soon as it's available I recommend grabbing it up quickly. Yes, you can even call yourself Mal or Han if you want.
Here's a video showing a typical round of play. I'm actually in this one for once :D

Ubongo

When I was a kid in elementary school someone determined that I was smart and it was decided that I would be in some special classes for what was called the Gifted and Talented Program. While it was fun to get out of regular class, play some games and do some learning stuff that you wouldn't normally do, it seemed like this only served to initate the social isolation and awkwardness that smart people are subjected to. Sad and emo that it is, it's really neither here nor there and better suited for a more whiny, self-loathing drunk post later. Anyhow one of the most fun things we did was a set of puzzles called Tangrams, which are puzzles in which you try to make a set of shapes fit into a shape. I loved doing these, and I'd totally forgotten about them until I was introduced to Ubongo a couple of years ago.

Ubongo is a competitive puzzle-solving game. You're given a board, a set of Tetris-esque pieces, and have a minute to solve the puzzle your dealt, move your token and collect your points. In the end the person with the most of any single color of gem wins the game, so while being able to solve the puzzles correctly helps you greatly in the game it's not going to make winning a guarantee.

These kinds of victory conditions, meaning those that aren't directly based on the primary mechanic of the game (in this case solving the puzzles) are either a big plus or a negative for some players. On one hand it sort of evens the playing field for newer players and those that may not be a puzzle inclined as others. On the other hand this balancing of the game can annoy people who do excel at puzzles and can even be quite offputing. Personally, I like mechanic because it does strike a good middle-ground between those who grew up with things like Tangrams and those who had to stay in regular classes all day. :)

I'll just say that I've loved the game ever since I first played it. Its bits are quite well made and the quasi-African theme is an oddly appropriate fit to the game. It also plays VERY fast with 10 rounds each taking about two minutes for dealing the puzzles, starting the timer, playing the actual puzzle and turning in used playing cards. Even if you end up hating the game, you won't be stuck at the table for very long before you can go try something else.

All told, Ubongo gets a 10 of 10 VPs. Its fast pace and ease of learning make this a standout game and easily one of my all time favorites. It's even easy to find these days and I happily suggest that you try it out yourself.

Here's a video depicting a few rounds from our most recent session. Enjoy!

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Preview

The band Rush said it best in their song "Tom Saywer": Changes aren't permenant, but change is. Inevitably things change and evolve and this is especially true in the gaming world. Consoles come and go, franchises are created, updated, and eventually abandoned. The next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons, the ultimate expression of mainstream nerddom, is upon us and with it a slew of new changes to the most popular role-playing game to date.

So what's different about 4th edition, you might ask. Based on the material that's been released from playtesters and Wizards themselves, there are some major changes in the game regarding the abilities of the player characters (PCs). If you're familiar with D&D 3.5 and more specifically the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords (Bo9S), some of the changes are going to look very familiar. Bo9S introduced a new mechanic for melee characters to use that are similiar to spells cast by wizards and clerics. These maneuvers were special abilities generally geared for combat that scaled just like spells. Moreover, the use of these abilities were not restricted to "per day" basis like spellcaster, nor were they as unlimited as the warlock's at-will abilities. Rather, they were automatically refreshed after every encounter or fight. A character using these manuevers could even change them out with 5 minutes of meditation, allowing for greater versatility.

4th edition borrows this "per encounter" idea, as well as the at-will abilities of the warlock quite heavily. In 4th edition every PC, from the fighter to the wizard has a collection of at-will, per encounter, and per day abilities. These abilities are called powers and come from different sources depending on the character. The duration of these powers has also changed. Some are instant, others last until the end of the encounter, and others last until the target character makes a successful save. No more ticking off rounds for effects, as the consequences of spells and abilities now flow more naturally with the situation at hand.

Character creation is also different as there is a standard rate at which all characters gain powers, much like the accumlation of feats in 3rd edition. Speaking of feats, they will be granted more often. Even though the Player's Handbook will only have 8 classes (Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Warlord, Wizard), the options for these characters are increased with the selection of powers in addition to feats and skills. Characters are also relegated to different roles including Defender, Skirmisher, Controller, and Leader. Paladins and Fighters could fill the tank-like Defender role with Rogues and Rangers using their mobility and high damage to make up for their lower AC and hit points. Wizards and warlocks are the controllers of the party, setting the flow of the battle with their spells while leaders such as clerics and warlords use their abilities to buff and heal the party.

I'm going to hold off a lengthy retelling of the crunchy bits, as they're readily available to be read and digested, and am going to tell you what I think of the new changes so far. If you couldn't tell already, I'm really looking forward to the new iteration of D&D. I loved Bo9S, and am glad to see it's ideas incorporated into the core game. The generation of hit points as a result of leveling up is now a fixed amount based on your class with your constitution as a bonus only at level 1. I'm also looking forward to see if the designers remedy one of the biggest problems in the game which would be the almost mandatory inclusion of a divine healer in the party. From what I've read, their intention is to make any character filling the Leader role just as capable of keeping the party alive as the cleric. Some of the so-called Paragon Paths seem interesting, the Kensai for the fighter and the Doomsayer for the warlock sounding the most interesting to me. The new core race of Dragonborn has me intrigued, as it's merely a racial template right now.

The whole party role thing, especially the Leader role, is also a concern for me. I fear it'll be possible that warlords are just going to be shitty clerics, nothing will have actually changed, and you'll still need a banda... I mean cleric in your party if you expect to survive in the long term. Another concern is that of arcane implements. Powers are all initiated by something, be it a weapon, holy symbol, or arcane implement like a wand or staff. It always bothered me that in some story setting magic users were powerless without their implements. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, I'm looking right at you. I guess it's just as silly as speaking words of magical power and waving your hands around to cast spells, but it still bothered me. I'm also questioning the splitting of the elves (again) into eladrin (snooty high elves) and elves (woodsy wild elves). I think there was room for both archtypes in the same race and when races like half-orcs are being left out of the PHB, I'm a bit skeptical. Some players are also turned off by the seemingly MMORPGish nature of the new system. I don't see that resembling a game like World of Warcraft as an inherently bad thing. D&D it's started as a miniature combat game, and I'm willing to actually get a few sessions in before I damn it for resembling a new popular type of game.

I've got the core books on preorder, so I'm obviously hoping for the best here. We've already got a DM for the new edition lined up and almost ready to go. As for my first character, who apparently will be starting at level 1, I'm going to have to see something really cool to not play a Dragonborn or dwarven fighter. Another player as also expressed interest in the ranger, while our third player has yet to even consider what he might be playing and could very well be rolling up his character the morning of our first session.

To quote another song: The waiting is the hardest part.

Kingsburg

If you've read some of my recent reviews, you'd notice that I seem to be harping on games heavily for incorporating dice-rolling in their combat systems. This might seem strange to people who know me even a little, as my two favorite games (Twilight Imperium and D&D) are based around rolling die to fight. Perhaps I'm being a bit too harsh on those games, and maybe I need something to help out with my irrational hatred of unfamilar dice rolling combat.

Kingsburg seems to be a step in the right direction for me. Like Liar's Dice or To Court the King (affectionately called Yahtzee: The Gathering in our group), its mechanics are almost entirely based in rolling six-sided die. Speaking of To Court the King, Kingsburg borrows a lot of themes and ideas from that game while polishing said ideas to lustering shine. In both games, your roll of your dice determines which characters you can claim turning your turn. These characters in both games provide varying benefits, and the higher you roll the better the characters get as far as their abilities are concerned. This is where the two games diverge some, while To Court the King's theme is almost an after thought to the mechanics of rolling dice and tapping cards for stuff to happen, Kingsburg tries its hand at being a civilization-building game. Where To Court the Kings characters provide you with the means to add and manipulate dice in your quest to roll 7-of-a-kind, Kingsburg's characters provide you with the resources you'll need to build your city and fight off the enemies that attack at the end of a round. It's a neat twist that provides some real strategy to an otherwise mindless game. Do you intentionally take a lower character to get that stone instead of the gold? Do you go with a militarized city that'll help you fight bad guys, or do you go with an industrialized hamlet to more effectively gather resources? This was the fun of the game for me, and I found that the near constant dice-rolling to be a lot of fun.

Kingsburg is not perfect. As demonstrated in our session, it's VERY easily to essentially get knocked out of the game with a bad first round. Additionally some of the characters vastly more powerful than others, the king and queen being prime examples of this. The queen is superior to the king, providing more benefit for a point less than the mighty king. This is an obvious nod to the power behind the throne being more effective than the guy sitting as king, but I feel like I've seen this before. Additionally the game suffers from what all chance-based games do, and that players simply getting screwed by bad rolls at bad times. It's almost unavoidable in games of this type, like faulting Twilight Imperium for being to complicated and long while it's simply part of the game. I would also like more monsters to fight, but all of these complaints are relatively minor. Kingsburg is a fun and easy to learn dice-fest that will continue to entertain me for sometime. I'm glad that it seems to be getting more popular with my group, and I hope that it hits the table again soon. Since I'm considering buying my own copy, I'm giving this one a 8/10. Fantastic game, beautifully packaged, and easy for anyone to get into.

Here now is a video of the first round of play. Well, not quite all of it, but you get the idea.

Princes of the Renaissance

When I introspectively look at the games I play and how I play them, I find that I'm a rather violent person. Show me a game where I can build a military and blow stuff up or beat something down and I'm all over it. This was most apparent in a recent game of Fire and Axe where I ignored building my viking civilization by settling cities and trading for riches, and instead went on a rampage sacking all the cities I could, including Rome, Paris, and Constantinople (not Istanbul). While it was really cool having all those plastic trophies of my glorious victories, I ended up with the least amount of victory points. By a lot. Clearly I need reevaluate my stratigeries when playing any game that has even the hint of a fighting aspect.

The game to heal me of my aggro affliction is Princes of the Renaissance. The backstory of the game involves foppy Italian families getting various cities to fight seemingly pointless wars for fun and profit. I say seemingly pointless, because no matter how much you fight you never EVER lose a military unit you've purchased. This floored me as the rules were being explained and I was beginning to wonder whether I'd made a mistake in sitting down to this silly game. As it turns out, the point of fighting is not actually to kill anyone, it's to make a big show for the city that you're fighting for at the moment. Win or lose, you get paid if you're fighting but it's the honor of the city that's on the line. This game is really an investment game, as players slowly buy "shares" of the individual cities hoping that they'll be worth more by the final turn. In fact, it may be to your overall benefit to have a really crappy army and fight for cities that you want to take down a peg, or want to buy into on the cheap. I really ended up liking this a lot, especially coupled with the auction mechanic that takes up a majority of the game.

Now for the not so good. The packaging is really minimal, and while it's really not cool to judge a game by it's box, it's hard to ignore the medicore bits the game comes with. In addition, the battling in the game comes down to dice rolling, and while that's fine for other games that I like, it really bothered me in this one. I'm probably being way too harsh, but it almost seems that when you boil down the mechanics of this game you're almost better off just playing Ra. It's got a lot fewer rules to learn and is just as or more fun. I will say that getting into the theme of the game is pretty easy, and we were talking like snooty royals and role-playing a little near game's end.

In the end, this is a game you really have to be in the mood for. As a new player, it took me a while to get into how I was supposed to play and win. I ended up in second place out of four players by 5 or 6 victory points. I had fun, and give this game a 6/10 VP. Definately something I'll be playing again soon.

Still Alive?

Yep, just been busy with work and house hunting. Still, that's NO excuse for laziness! I'll make it up with a couple of new reviews this week for Kingsburg and Princes of the Renaissance, from this last meeting of the Super Fantastic Gaming Hour group. For now, here's a video of one of the most stupidly awesome games to have come out ever. Seriously, it's random and retarded all at once. Just like your mom. :D