Stats Review 2019

This is the 2019 review of games played at the club, corresponding articles for 2008 - 2018 are linked from the "Previously" box to the left, usually under January of the following year, but sometimes under December of the year in question. As last year I include a comparison with the previous year. Full details are on the Stats Pages on the website. There is also a geeklist of all the games played here. I also tweeted the top 10 @halesowenBG.

This year, being the end of the decade I've also surveyed the games played over that time period and there's another article here.

The decade 2010-2019 at HBG

I have been writing an annual short review of what we've played since 2010. We're now at the end of 2019 and as I've got a full decade of data, I thought I'd write an article looking at the 10 years just passed. This is very much me typing whatever comes to mind so if I should repeat myself don't be surprised.

First of the year - 2 Jan 2019

Yesterday was the first meet of the year and I thought I'd see about getting some action here, seeing how dormant it's got. Can't say if I'll keep it up and even if I do it'll probably be just a listing of the games and results with maybe some pictures.

Brass Birmingham - My best score of 164

Anyway 11 of us gathered at the Stag and played 5 games, the main games being Grand Austria Hotel, Brass:Birmingham and Carpe Diem.

Results for the evening

02/01/2019
Carpe Diem - 90 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Rachael	99
2	Lee	85
3	Rob L	80
4	Steve W	77
Crypt - 20 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Rob L	55
2	Steve W	33
Crypt - 20 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Rob L	51
2	Steve W	30
Grand Austria Hotel - 150 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Mark R	167
2	Steve H	157
3	Scott	152
4	Charlotte	124
Brass: Birmingham - 150 Mins.
Posn.	Player	Score
1	Dave D	164
2	Phil G	158
3	Mark W	139

Stats Review 2018

This is the 2018 review of games played at the club, corresponding articles for 2008 - 2017 are linked from the "Previously" box to the left, usually under January of the following year, but sometimes under December of the year in question. As last year I include a comparison with the previous year. Full details are on the Stats Pages on the website. There is also a geeklist of all the games played here. I also tweeted the top 10 @halesowenBG.

Games Played - 30 May 2018

Whilst over on the other table 2 of our most-played games at the Club, Power Grid and San Juan, got another airing, on my table (with Phil, Mark and Steve W) we tried 3 games which haven't been played here before.  Fortunately none of them were overly complex, so learning 3 sets of rules in a night didn't seem too onerous or time-consuming, although we did have a few minutes' play of the first one before we quickly realised we had the rules wrong but it was easy to start again..

There's a lot of games where you start with a few dice and then achieve goals to gain more dice, well Dice Forge adds a twist to that idea because you don't get more dice, you only ever have 2 but 'pimp' them with better faces which give you more of what you need.  How?  Well each die has easily removable clip-in plastic faces, and if you get enough 'gold' (which some of the basic and pimped die faces give you) you can buy new faces - click the old one out, press the new one in ready for the next roll.  Some faces just give VPs, some give 'lightning' with which you can buy cards to give abilities and extra VPs or extra turns, some give 'magic' with which you can buy cards, weapons and the ability to store extra gold/lighning/magic between turns, as anything the dice give over your tableau limit is wasted.  There's plenty of options, game length is about right, and there's a reasonable amount of replayability.

The theme to Barker's Row immediately grabbed us : collecting various freaks and curios to put together fairground carnival attractions to gain more customers ('rubes') and win the game.  Basically there are 4 suits of cards plus jokers, you have a hand of attractions (basically tells you the suit you need, and when you've completed that attraction it gives you extra abilities).  Every turn you draw at least one card into a central 'midway' of cards, and then if you can get enough suit+joker cards from there to complete an attraction, gatehr up all of those cards to claim your rubes, but every time you do so you need more cards to fulfil the next attraction.  The theme is great, and compensates a little for the rather repetitive nature of your turns, but we found a serious, but hopefully rare, glitch.  Because I, throughout the game, had attractions in only 2 colours, so it was more difficult to get large enough sets in the midway to pick up.  Other players kept beating me to them, so in a game of probably 15-16 turns my last 10(!) turns consisted of just drawing a card!  If this game gets regular play and it happens again the rules may need a tweak.

Finally Mutant Crops is not as funny as the name suggests, you're collecting cards with pictures of fruit with faces on them, but a competent enough worker placement /  commodity collection / task fulfilment game.  Nothing bad about it but not particularly distinctive as a 20-30 minute filler.

Stats Review 2017

This is the 2017 review of games played at the club, corresponding articles for 2008 - 2016 are linked from the "Previously" box to the left, usually under January of the following year, but sometimes under December of the year in question. As last year I include a comparison with the previous year. Full details are on the Stats Pages on the website. There is also a geeklist of all the games played here. I also tweeted the top 10 @halesowenBG.

Games at Halesowen Library 4 November

On 4th November Steve H & I will be at Halesowen Library from about 1 - 3pm with a selection of games that we play. These will be a mixture of longer games that are really just for show and shorter games that we hope to be able to demonstrate to passers by who maybe interested in these sorts of games.

This is part of International Games Week with events taking place in libraries across the world.

Games Played - 6 September 2017

While the usual four settled down to their latest session of "Risk : Legacy", the new "Terraforming Mars" board saw its first outing, and a new game "Cry Havoc" debuted at the Club, I sat down with Stan and Michael to play one of my favourites of the last few years - Wolfgang Kramer's "Coal Baron" aka "Gluck Auf".  After a rules runthrough for Michael as he'd not seen it before, Stan was start player and we started mining and shipping - Michael got the hang of the game immediately and at the end of the 1st of the 3 rounds only 3 points separated us all.  I'd been unable to prevent Stan from getting start player (a big advantage usually) for 2nd round, he looked to be doing well but at the end of the round it was still close, this time Stan was 2 pts ahead of me and I was 2 pts ahead of Michael.  Stan was shorter on money than us but as he was start player again at this point I thought he was favourite, especially as I had a serious imbalance between light and dark mine sides and Michael had no contracts.  In the end though Stan really stalled in the final turn, while Michael ran up a massive 19 pts of contracts, and as we ran through the 12 ways of scoring the lead changed hands several times, with several joint 2nd places (mostly against me) until Michael pulled ahead (137 pts), I squeaked a very grateful 2nd (130 pts) and Stan was 3rd (125 pts).  A terrfific game that had been impossible to call.

We then played "Love Letter Premium Edition", it's the standard game with lovely huge cards plus the box offers replacements for existing cards and/or entirely new cards that you can add in.  We chose just to add in the 'Jester' and the 'Assassin', and they did add some extra nuances to the game inclduing, unfortunately for me, the only time that the Assassin triggered (if a Guard targets a player with the Assassin, the Guard-user dies instead).  With the Jester (get a heart token if the player you give the Jester token to wins the hand) we managed to get a drawn game - with Michael still yet to score, Stan and I were both on 3 (playing to 4) and Stan Jestered me before I won the hand so we both got a token.

Finally "This Town Ain't Big Enough", 24 cards of murderous brain-burning where Stan and I managed to freeze Michael out of a big corral to dump him into 3rd but I couldn't stop Stan capturing the other big corral for the very steadily played win (10 to 8 to 7).

What matters in a board game - mechanics or theme?

I’ve been having a discussion online with another board game designer about how important theme is for board games. My point was that for many lighter games the theme is largely irrelevant for the game play, and is more of a marketing issue to persuade people to buy a game. I used the examples of Carcassonne: Star Wars Edition and the various variants of Love Letter. Same game, same experience, different target markets, I wrote. He replied that “the themeing [sic] in Love Letter and Carcassonne DOES matter. Otherwise, why would you retheme them? The theme itself changes the experience of playing the game.” This got me thinking about the venerable issue of theme versus mechanics and their relative importance for different types of game and different types of gamers.

So what are mechanics and what is theme? In a nutshell, the mechanics of a boardgame are how it is played – the combination of the components and the rules. For Carcassonne the mechanics consist of various types of tiles, the meeples and how they interact through the rules – where you can place tiles and in what orientation, where and when you can place meeples, when and how you score etc. The theme is the subject of the game. In Carcassonne it is the medieval city of that name. For some games the theme is given only by the name of the game – and possibly the names of components such as cards – and the artwork. For other games the theme is also provided by the mechanics. In wargames, the mechanics are an attempt to simulate warfare. You move and fight with units, in some sort of simulacra of battles, operations or campaigns. Even a simple game such as risk does this. You move and fight with your units, but you must always leave at least one unit behind to secure your line of supply or your production base (it is not clear exactly which because the mechanics are too simple to provide anything beyond the most basic simulation).

Classic games like chess and bridge are all about the mechanics and the same goes for abstract games like Connect Four. There is often no theme at all. On the other hand, most mass market games are about the theme, with the mechanics being very primitive. Quiz games are a good example of this. The various special editions of Monopoly do have mechanics – essentially the same set of mechanics for all of them – but people buy them for the theme. In each edition, a different theme (the names of the spaces on the board and the artwork) is transposed onto the same mechanical base. Euro games, which started to become popular in the mid-1990s with the success of Settlers of Catan, are different to both abstract games and older-style mass market games. While the focus may be on the mechanics, they also have a theme. The latter may be nothing more than the name and the artwork or it may be integrated into the mechanics. In Ameritrash games, which have their origins in the late 1970s with the likes of Dune and Cosmic Encounter, the focus is on the theme but they also have highly developed mechanics.

The relative focus of hobby games – those played by enthusiasts rather than casual gamers – has changed over the years. In the 1970s and 1980s, when hobby gaming was dominated by companies such as Avalon Hill and Games Workshop, games had both strong themes and often fairly complex mechanics. Theme was conveyed both by the art and the mechanics. Overall, theme was most important – indeed, the mechanical complexity often existed in order to further the theme at the expense of game play. This is called ‘chrome’ – perhaps a reference to the flashy American cars of that era that might look fantastic but were poorly engineered. The rising popularity of euro games in the 1990s created an entirely new segment of games for the board gaming enthusiast and changed the focus of hobby games. Boardgamegeek was created in 2000 and can be used to track this transition and the changing focus ever since then. The top ranked game on bgg in the latter half of 2001 was Paths of Glory, a complex wargame with a strong thematic element. It was replaced in early 2002 by Tigris and Euprates, Reiner Knizia’s masterpiece, which is essentially an abstract game with a pasted-on theme. Then Puerto Rico was the number one game for several years. It is not an abstract, as the theme is reflected in the artwork, the names of components and also in the mechanics, not the least of which is role selection. However, I would argue that it was so highly rated more for its game play than its theme. Agricola took over the top slot for a couple of years. More strongly themed than Puerto Rico and with more integration between the theme and the mechanics, but still very much a euro game. The current decade has seen euro games gradually lose their position in the rankings and, arguably, a return to the importance of theme. Twilight Struggle, a new type of hybrid game, was rated number one for five years. It combines a very strongly developed theme with well-honed mechanics and streamlined game play. It uses mechanical elements from euro games and from newer-style wargames to bring back to life the thematic richness of games from the 1970s and 1980s.

In the past couple of years there has been a new trend – games funded through Kickstarter have begun to make waves in the hobby. These are often sold on the basis of their art (both 2D and 3D) and component quality. However, I would argue that this is often at the expense of the quality of their game play. I can only speculate on the reasons behind this. I suspect that games are not playtested thoroughly with new elements that are added during Kickstarter campaigns. Maybe games do not have proper developers as a higher proportion of the costs are absorbed by the artists. Nevertheless, games such as Gloomhaven and Scythe are now in the top 10 on bgg, together with a couple of euro games – Terra Mystica and Caverna – and new hybrids such as Pandemic Legacy. What is clear is that most of these games are thematically rich. The top-ranked example of an older-style euro game that focuses on the mechanics and game play, with theme being of less importance, is Funkenschlag (Power Grid) at number 23.

The reason I wrote this blog, as the title suggests, is to open up a discussion about theme and game mechanics. What is important to you as a designer or as a player? What is important to the board gamers you know? Can theme be conveyed only by the art or does it need to be integrated into the game play through the mechanical elements?

Blog post on Birmingham Game Designers site

Birmingham Game Designers

Birmingham Playtesters have now rebranded as Birmingham Game Designers. We've launched a Website and a new Facebook group. We still meet every second Thursday of the month from 19.00 at The Woodman, but at least one of us will also be at Meeple Mayhem every Saturday from 11.00 with a game to playtest.

Games for sale

I've put some games for sale on bgg. I'd prefer to avoid the hassle of sending them by post, so if anyone is interested in buying a game and picking it up at the club then I'll give a 10% discount.
https://boardgamegeek.com/geekmarket/user/janos_hunyadi

Games P|ayed - 15 March 2017

Time for another evening of genteel activities down at the Club - Plague and Pirates! While the others were busy with "Castles of Burgundy" and the Club's hottest recent game "Terraforming Mars", which Steve H confidently predicted he would come last at (hey, that's usually my line!), I tried a couple of new (to me) games with Mark W, James and Steve W, firstly "Plague, Inc.", a sort of 'anti-Pandemic' where you non-cooperatively try to spread diseases as widely as possible across the Planet.  Basically an area (country cards) control game, where after all spaces available in the country are filled, the player with the majority (or joint majority) of infection counters in there tries to kill it and thus clear space for new countries (and imoportantly get infection counters back) with a die roll.  As a disease, you start with limited transmission methods, speed and lethality but can buy better characteristics.  Soon after all the countries are on the board or dead the game ends and various ways of counting VPs decide the winner.  Our first game was a hoot, some of the card flavour text is hilarious and there's plenty of bad-taste comment opportunities, but as the humour dies off with repeated plays does it cut it for replayability?  Well, at two hours-ish it's definitely too long for the degree of engagement and luck elements, and particualrly in a four-player game on the plus side there's little AP but an awful lot of (bad) things can happen between your turns as the game progresses and diseases get more powers and use Event card they can accumulate and play all in a single turn.  Mark and I particularly fell foul of this and with the right Event combos almost any plan you have can be undone by others, but despite this I would be happy to play it again, perhaps with 3 players.  Finally a filler with a pirate theme - Loot (I'm sure I've played another game called this?) where you're all playing cards to capture merchant ships others launch or save the ones you launch, with each ship having 3-8 gold on them (most gold is the winner) and pirate cards of varying power being played against the ships to try to capture them.  There are 5 'trump' pirate cards, which are very powerful - I was the only player to draw two of them and perhaps not coincidentally won easily.  It was fun, simple, just the right length, with scope for some tactics : nothing special but I'd happily play again.

Stats Review - 2016

This is the 2016 review of games played at the club, corresponding articles for 2008 - 2015 are linked from the "Previously" box to the left, usually under January of the following year, but sometimes under December of the year in question. As last year I include a comparison with the previous year. Full details are on the Stats Pages on the website. There is also a geeklist of all the games played here. I also tweeted the top 10 @halesowenBG.

Birimingham Playtesters

The next meeting of Birmingham Playtesters is 7pm next Thursday 13th at the Woodman pub on New Canal St. The games we'll be playtesting are Kingdom of Kiralysag and Master of Olympus. If you're interested in coming along then please let me know or join the Facebook Group. The designer of Master of Olympus wants to do a blind playtest, so if someone is prepared to read the rules, then he or she would be especially welcome.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1792550894301290/

"Master of Olympus is a strategy game in which players assume the roles of gods and goddesses from Greek mythology and use armies, heroes and creatures to gain supremacy over the other gods. Players collect victory points by conquering territory, claiming artefacts and assigning powerful companions to their heroes. In the process the well-known myths are re-written; it is possible, for example, for Theseus to kill the Gorgon, claim the Golden Fleece and return home with Helen of Troy in tow.
The game uses a stacking mechanic - currently simulated with Lego pieces - to track the strength of various pieces. Opposing armies and fleets stack up before embarking on dice-based battles, with features like fatigue, combat stats and god powers to reduce the randomness of the outcomes. The catch is the levelling up of heroes and creatures: the Centaur could become Petrifying at a moment’s notice, making it stronger and giving it unique abilities it’s owner will try to make the most of."

Games Played - 21 September 2016

3 tables tonight, one featured Roll For the Galaxy and Isle of Skye both of which to be honest I'm not particularly keen on, one featured World Without End and Guillotine which I'd be more than happy to fill an evening with, but I didn't feel I'd missed out as on my table 5 of us got stuck into 2 classics : Amun Re and China. 

Amun Re first up, the 1st Epoch seemed to rush through quite quickly, probably as there never seemed to be a lot of money in the game to indulge in big auctions but Camels paid well.  I had 2 bits of luck, firstly getting Pharoah for just 2 gold with which I built an extra pyramid, then in the 3rd turn pulling a 3VP card which I accidentally satsified (although I feel the latter was cancelled out by the fact that it was the only 3VP card I pulled all night), so a healthy 17 VP (4 pyramids + 1 set + 3VP + 1 largest pyramid + 2 VP for Temples) saw me ahead going into Epoch 2 but a bit stuck for cash.  2nd Epoch was much tougher and slower including a protracted auction featuring the only provinice with no existing pyramid (Gordon's fault so perhaps apt that he ended up with it again) but I was going steadily and as long as nobody else did spectacularly well I felt that I might be able to hang on as cash flow was reasonable and I got the 2 Temple province, but when Rob spent 45 on blocks but built sets rather than attack Steve H on one of the river banks for largest pyramid (he was pretty guaranteed one of them), and the others let Steve get 2 Temples (I picked up Damanhur on the 2nd auction so could do nothing else myself) he stormed to victory and I had to settle for 2nd place.  Great fun though.

5-player China is a tricky proposition, and this one started off with all 5 players opening up a new province in thier 1st turn which I don't think I've ever seen before.  This certainly wiped out the perceived 1st player disadvantage for James (who I recall eventually won, perhaps proving my point).  I got caught in the classic 'no mates' trap with emissaries, unable to participate in the top right of the board at key moments and so having to get predominantly solo allainces at bottom right.  Everyone else except Rob got into healthy shared alliances and I think I ended up 4th.  This is another great game, loads of decisions and interractions crammed into just 35-40 minutes.

Birmingham Playtesters Facebook Group

Birmingham Playtesters, the local affiliate of Playtest UK, now has a Facebook Group.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 13th October.

This War Without an Enemy now on bgg

I'm now officially, according to boardgamegeek, a Game Designer. The entry for my first game - This War Without an Enemy - has gone live. If you are a subscriber of bgg then please visit the page and become a fan (click on the heart symbol). Feel free to make a comment if you are interested in the game, but no false ratings please (ie don't rate it unless you have played it). The game is currently being considered by a number of publishers and an active bgg page demonstrating interest in the game from boardgamers may just make enough of a difference to encourage one of them to give me a contract - and then I'd be a professional board game designer!
This War Without an Enemy

Games Played - 20 July 2016

11 in attendance this week, we broke off into 4-4-3, initial games played on the other tables were Castles Of Mad King Ludwig and World Without End, on my table was James, Rob, Mike and myself, Mike suggested Chicago Express


Chicago Express


This was the second time in recent weeks this has made it to the table, a really clever stock/route building game with a fantastic looking board (I love those dials!!!)


Early on both red (Rob and Me) and blue (James and Mike) were making a fast start towards Chicago but as the final share in red was auctioned off, red then began to slow pace (as I had majority and therefore Rob was not inclined to assist - quite a clever part of the game)


Rob was the sole investor in yellow and as a result was picking up some nice early pay-outs, whilst green (Mike and James) were picking up some nice pay-outs too despite the track not being extended at all


Blue (Mike, James and now Rob) continued to steam roll ahead making it to Chicago first, this opened up Wabash for auction which I was able to secure, I then proceeded to make it reach Chicago at the expense of red (which would have paid off for Rob too)


Yellow (Mike and Rob) now started to pick up pace as both were investing in track and infrastructure which also began to pay off


At the end it was Rob who was able to pull off a narrow victory


CE really is a clever game but one which takes a few plays to get your head around, a very enjoyable game all round


China


Next up was China, another excellent fast playing area control game where you are trying to get majorities in the different provinces of China by placing your houses or emissaries


Rob stormed into a lead after picking up some early points for having majority (in most cases) in the provinces, Mike soon caught up after picking up majority scores in the larger provinces, but from nowhere BOOM!!!! James pulls it out the bag with a huge score due to end of game emissary majorities


A great little game which was enjoyed by all


A good night all round

Next Playtest UK Birmingham Meeting

The next (and 3rd) Playtest UK Birmingham Meeting will be on Thursday 11th August from 7pm in the Wellington pub on Bennett's Hill. We'll be trying out a couple of shorter games. More details here:
http://www.meetup.com/Playtest/events/232636992/

Games Played - 13 July 2016

A total of 10 in attendance this week, we split into 4-3-3, 4 for Power Grid, 3 for Kingdom of Kiralysag (I must try out by the way Scott!!) and Mark W, Steve W and myself opted for the following


Imhotep


First time played at the club, the theme is about helping to build up Egypt by sailing off your building blocks to various structures on the mainland


Steve's strategy was the Building Chamber where a contiguous chain of blocks can score heavily at the end game, Mark was able to pick up points pretty much every round by contributing towards the Pyramid and the Temple Wall, I opted for the tallest Obelisk for big points at the end of the game


Steve was able to pick up the majority of the Market cards along the way (at the disgust of Mark!!!!) which helped towards an end game victory


A relatively fast playing fun game (so I thought anyway), would like to bring again due to the simplicity but lots of strategy


Stockpile


Next up was Stockpile, another fast playing, fun stock trading game where each round you have some insider info, some publicly known info and some unknown info, it all adds to a really cool and fun game which all players thoroughly enjoyed


Mark came away with the victory, stock splits held until the end and majority shares in most companies for end game scoring meant a resounding victory


Next time we can try the advanced game with varying player abilities - good stuff


R-Eco


Last up was a fun little card game about trying to recycle goods but being terrible at it as leaving waste each time a delivery is made, some really neat ideas in this game, lots to think about but fun at the same time


I came away with the victory at the end


Another excellent night of gaming, already looking forward to next week!!!