Spiel: Boardgaming in the UK

The new release from Fragor Games this year will be Savannah Tails, an ostrich racing game. Here is a brief description from the web page:

“Play as either Albrecht, Alexandra, Enzo, Nnelg or Mathilda as you race for glory through the African savannah. However, winning the race is the least of your worries. Cheetahs will try to eat you. Crocodiles will try to eat you. Warthogs will probably try to ignore you. Elephants are just in the way. The less said about porcupines the better.

The game is for 2-5 adventurous flightless birds. It plays quickly and can be learned in minutes. Players have their own deck of ostrich cards from which they draw a hand of four – these are used to move your ostrich along coloured ostrich footprints. You must end your turn on a footprint which matches the colour of the card you played. In addition, bonuses can be received at water holes. These include “Whacky Wings,” “Boinnnggg” and “Neckstretch.” Some are for one-time use while others allow a benefit for the rest of the game.

The game will include 25 track sections allowing players to once again design their own races. Some of these feature ‘unhelpful’ animals. Special tracks involving a rope bridge, quicksand and a sand dune are also included.”

The game is being produced as a limited run of 1,000 copies and it will cost 23 Euros at Essen. A pre-order facility is available. More details can be found here.

The IGA Committee have just announced the finalists for this years awards. In the multi-player category, ten games are in contention:

• Automobile – Martin Wallace, Warfrog / Treefrog
• Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game – Corey Konieczka, Fantasy Flight Games
• Diamonds Club – Rüdiger Dorn, Ravensburger
• Dominion – Donald X. Vaccarino, Rio Grande Games / Hans im Glück
• Le Havre – Uwe Rosenberg, Lookout Games
• Roll Through the Ages – Matt Leacock, FRED Distribution / Gryphon Games
• Small World – Philippe Keyaerts, Days of Wonder
• Snow Tails – Fraser & Gordon Lamont, Fragor Games / Asmodee Editions
• Space Alert – Vlaada Chvatil, Czech Games Edition
• Steam – Martin Wallace, Mayfair Games / Phalanx Games

This is a good list of nominees. I’ve still to play Automobile but I have been through the rules and it looks like a typical Martin Wallace game and deserves to be nominated. Space Alert would not have been on my list as the real-time aspect is something that doesn’t press my buttons, although I do own it and have enjoyed my only game so far. I don’t begrudge Snow Tails appearance on the list  as it is good fun but I do still prefer Powerboats as the 2008 race game of choice.

Turning to the two-player category, the nominees are:

• 2 de Mayo – Daniel Val, Gen X Games
• Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! – Uwe Eickert, Academy Games/ElfinWerks/Phalanx Games
• Day & Night – Valentijn Eekels, Mystics.nl
• Die Säulen der Erde: Duell der Baumeister – Stefan Feld, Kosmos
• Kamisado – Peter Burley, Burley Games

I’m a bit embarassed that I’ve only played one of this list, the excellent Kamisado, but I would like to try the Pillars of the Earth Duel game and will be looking out for it at Essen.

The results are likely to be announced around the end of September with the awards being presented at Essen in October by my friend and gaming luminary, Greg Schloesser.

Four of us tried this Amigo card game designed by Rudiger Dorn tonight. It played ok but was a bit long for what it was.

Basically, at any one time, there were four treasures up for grabs, some of which gave positive points and some negative (although the negatives could be turned to positive by subsequently winning an identical negative card). From your hand of four treasure cards, you play a single card in either your or an opponent’s colour against one treasure. You also can play an action card, which essentially alters the normal rules and either helps you or hinders someone else. After a certain number of cards have been allocated to a particular treasure, it scores for the person with the most points of their colour placed against the card. Once all the treasure cards have been won, the person with the most net positive points wins.

Once we got into the swing of what we were trying to do, the game ran reasonably smoothly but there didn’t seem to be too much forward planning one could do. Each turn was basically optimising a gain for yourself or hitting somebody else. For a quick card game, it seemed to take a bit too long overall but, with four, there didn’t seem too much downtime between turns.

In our game, Rebecca and I seemed to be trading blows to knock each other down, although Jan was definitely doing her best to make sure I didn’t prosper. In the end, Catherine edged the win, although Rebecca did really well in transforming her negative cards into positive points and only ended up one point behind the winner.

Jackson Pope has just announced that the latest Reiver Games release, Sumeria, is to have an expansion to allow two players to play instead of 3-4 players. Now, whether technically this represents an expansion or contraction is unclear, but for those who have trouble getting more than two players to their game nights, this could be a useful development.

The expansion will be:

– 24 trader pieces (6 each in the original 4 player colours)
– A sticker to add to the board showing the fourth player turn
– A rulesheet in English and German
– A plastic baggie to keep it all in

The expansion will be released as a promo at Essen, available free with a purchase of Sumeria at Essen. It will also be available to purchase at Essen for 2,50 Euro, or for sale from the Reiver Games website for £2 plus shipping and handling.

This year’s Spiel game fair at Essen takes place on 22-25 October 2009 and I’ve just organised my flights and hotel. As usual, I’m just staying for two days / one night but, in a change from the last few years, am actually staying at the Jung Hotel – which was a bit of a surprise as Warfrog normally has it completely booked up. However, unless Expedia have managed to mess everything up (still possible), I appear to have a guaranteed reservation for the night of 22nd October.

Right, time to start planning what I’m going to be looking out for while I’m there – and seriously concentrating on reducing the unplayed list, before it goes up by another 20 or so.

The latest issue of Spielbox landed on the doormat at the weekend. Included in this issue were reviews of Dominion: Intrigue, Die Goldene Stadt, Flussfieber, Cities, Fruit Fair and Einauge Sei Wachsam all of which I’ve played. However, Cartagena – Die Meuterei and Dixit both look interesting.

Also included were a free expansion card for Planet Steam (which I’m unlikely to use) and an extra pie slice for Aber Bitte mit Sahne, a game I’m planning on picking up at Essen.

July saw my unplayed games list fall from 116 to 108, helped by a number of first plays while on holiday. In summary:

3 new games acquired (Dominion: Intrigue, which I’d already played, Long Shot and Straw)

10 games no longer unplayed (Circus Maximus, Ticket To Ride: USA 1910, Fjords, Palastgefluster, Murdero, Canal Grande, Die Goldene Stadt, Royal Palace, Long Shot and Straw).

0 games sold

If all goes to plan, we should get below 100 unplayed by the end of August but I’d rather be closer to 90 in view of the fact that Essen is drawing closer.

A couple of weeks ago, I set myself Mission Improbable – to get down to fewer than 20 unplayed games by 30 June 2010. This is the first of my month-end updates on progress to date.

Well we started with 120 games and we’re now down to 116 due to:

1 new game acquired (Traders of Carthage – which I spotted on sale for just £10 in Forbidden Planet, Manchester)

4 games no longer unplayed (Mow, Venedig, Modern Art: The Card Game and Cash-a-Catch)

1 correction made (Kontor: 3/4 Player Expansion no longer owned)

0 games sold (Probably won’t put any more stuff on Ebay until after I’m back from holiday – end of July)

Hopefully, July should see several more ticked off the list as I usually take some little card games on holiday and can occasionally get these to the table in the evening. However, it’s my birthday this month so it’s likely that at least one new game will be added to the collection.

This year’s game of the year in Germany has been announced today. In a bit of a surprise (to me, at least), the jury decided to give the award to Dominion, designed by Donald X Vaccarino and published by Hans-im-Gluck in Germany and Rio Grande in the UK.

Surprised, but pleasantly so, as I expected it to go to Fits – a much more family friendly game with a theme (Tetris) that is pretty well known. However, they picked a bit more of a gamers’ game (even though it is still very accessible) and my favourite of the nominated games.

Many congratulations to Donald, Jay Tummelson of Rio Grande Games, and the developers Dale Yu and Valerie Putman.

For those who play games in and around Bolton, their game group GNOME (Gamers North Of Manchester, England) has a new website. It’s still in its infancy (the site rather than the GNOMEs) and anyone who has any ideas about (or talent in) tarting up the site should get in touch with Chris by email: contact AT boltonboardgames DOT org DOT uk.