All posts by Darren

Floating in the air like a dandelion seed

Game day

Yesterday Diego and I got to play some games.

We started off the afternoon playing a two player game of Dune Imperium Uprising with the House Haggle deck as the third player. Ok technically it was the Dire Wolf app replacing the deck but still it was the digital version of those cards.

This was a strange game. For starters I never bought my third agent. Something I always do as early as possible! I just wasn’t getting much solari in this game.

The game also went the full 10 rounds. Neither Diego or myself were close to triggering the end of the game. And until the last combat it was looking like the run away winner was going to be the AI!

The last combat was a power play by myself. And was crucial to me coming from behind and seizing victory. With a worm in the combat if I won I was going to be able to claim my rewards twice. That meant victory was worth 4 victory points for me.

During that final round I was the clear leader with the committed forces to that final battle. But Diego had intrigue cards he could play. There was the potential to turn the tide of war in his favour.

But that fear was for nought. When it came to resolving the combat Diego had no tricks to play to steal the victory.

I had my 4 points and shot up to 9 points and the lead.

Did Diego have end of game intrigue cards then? Sadly for him nope. My last gasp power play was enough to snatch victory.

We followed up Dune Imperium Uprising with learning to play the dice game Dandelions.

This is an unusual game in my collection. It is very specific on the number of players it supports. Dandelions only plays two or three players.

Dandelions plays very fast. We played three games in less than 40 minutes.

I think Dandelions appears deceptively simple. Roll your dice, select one to use, move that number of spaces, put dice on card you finish on. Doesn’t sound very complicated. However that glosses over the area control element, where to move opponents dice to, etc.

So yes the basic game play may be extremely simple. However although not TI4 level of decision making, there are some deeper decisions to make.

I love the dry erase score sheet. That’s a very nice touch.

The fact that we played three games back to back should tell you all you need to know. This is another small box game that makes it easy to just leave in the game bag ready to play at a club night.

Our final game of the afternoon was Senso Battle for Japan.

I like trick taking games. My teenage years were spent playing knock out whist. Having one of my grand parents run a pub for part of my childhood, and two pubs (now long closed and turned into rental properties) literally next to my nans. Where many a time was spent with nan and locals playing pub games like dominoes. So the old traditional pub games are in my dna so to speak.

Thinking about it maybe my years playing knock out whist, and Top Trumps is why I like card games like MtG. That competitive duel.

Anyway Senso adds in an area control mechanic to this trick taking game.

The art on the cards is gorgeous and thematic. Setup is the same no matter the player count. Which is nice. The only thing that changes based on player count is the number of cards dealt each round after the first.

I like how the number of tricks you win each round determines your action that you take after all the cards have been played. As the rounds progress the number cards in your opening hand goes up, and the more tricks to be won. This opens up the possibility of being able to do more powerful actions.

As a two player game I thought it worked well. I get the feeling at higher player counts it gets a lot more cut throat. Not only on taking tricks, but on the area control part.

Definitely a game I need to try with more players.

I am enjoying these Sunday afternoon gaming sessions. Hopefully lots more to come.

New stuff on the way or arrived

So yes it wouldn’t be a just after payday week without some new stuff on the way.

First up are the three latest promo packs for Rolling Realms, Wyrmspan, Obsession, and Crusaders. I can’t wait for Rolling Realms Redux with the larger box. To say there is a storage issue currently if you have all the promo packs, or a large proportion of them, is an understatement.

Next I pulled the trigger on the second expansion for Parks called Wildlife. This is described as the “more” expansion. So more cards for the various decks. Plus a “minor” game play addition that I’ll go over once it arrives and gets to the table.

Finally I bought three roll and write print and plays! I forget which YouTube video I watched that put me onto these. But I bought Voyages, Waypoints, and Aquamarine from Postmark Games. They were dirt cheap at £4 each. I just need to print out four copies of each and laminate them (so I don’t have to keep printing and wasting ink) before I get them to the table.

Let’s talk about six baby

bgstat, by the numbers, gaming stats, life, the universe, and everything, stats, still alive

I couldn’t help quoting Klopp after Liverpool won their sixth Champions League title for the title of this blog post. It just seemed apt.

February saw some gaming. Not much though. Even less than January.

In total six board games made it to the table.

I was glad to get three of them to the table with a higher player count than my initial plays of them. They did not disappoint.

Getting Zombie Dice back to the table was cool. I really do need to leave this in the game bag, along with Sea Salt and Paper. Two nice little filler games for a club night.

With my upgraded dice cups for Liars Dice I need a better storage solution that would allow it with the neoprene mat for tracking bids to also be in the bag.

But as the search for that elusive bag continues I’m grateful that I got some gaming done this month.

Sadly I won’t be able to play any games tomorrow and record some rare plays for that once every four years opportunity.

But that just sums up my new normal. Hopefully Sunday will keep being a thing gaming wise, and with a bit of luck Tuesday will be a thing too.

Until then here’s hoping for a better March.

It’s the bants

Game day

This afternoon gaming with Jeff, Charlene, and Annabelle (Charlene’s daughter) was such fun.

We started off playing Wyrmspan.

A second play of the latest game from the Stonemaier Games stable. I’m loving it. I love how I can do combos in the game. On one turn I was able to combo it so I played two cave cards from the trade row for free. A couple turns later in the same round I got three dragons out for free on one action.

At this point I didn’t care if I won or lost. I’d done a couple of cool things. I’d got that MtG feel.

In the end I didn’t win. I came last by a massive single point. The lore books will show that Jeff was the dragon lord.

We followed up Wyrmspan with a game of Can’t Stop. This was so much fun at the full player count. Lots of going bust. Lots of banter. Lots of fake sympathy when some-one went bust on their turn. It was a hoot.

And amidst all this banter and laughter Jeff claimed the win.

Our final game of the afternoon was Sea Salt and Paper. I’d only played this two players previously. But I really liked it at the higher player count. This will be staying in the game bag I think as a nice little filler game. Oh Jeff won getting the clean sweep of wins for the afternoon.

After a busy week it was great to have an afternoon gaming with my friends. Plus Liverpool won their first trophy of the season. An amazing day.

In a contentless world…

dice masters, Dicemasters

The third and possibly for the time being final What if …? Episode of A Double Double ‘n Dice podcast.

In this episode Jocelyn and Kim ponder what the state of Dice Masters would be if there were no one creating content for the game.

Spoiler alert! There is no mention of me in this episode. I know very disappointing. I should write better posts, or leave comments in places that get read.

So what are my poorly conceived and constructed views on this?

I think I agree with the main premise of this episode that without content creators creating content there would be no Dice Masters.

For the record I don’t see myself as a content creator. I write the odd post about the game once in a blue moon.

Well we would have had the initial sets, but then it would have gone the way of Magic: The Gathering – Arena of the Planeswalkers (although that was poorly supported by Wizkids from the start).

I would argue that we are getting fewer and fewer content creators for the game. And those that do create new content do so less and less frequently. I think Jocelyn and Kim are the only ones creating stuff on a regular basis. Every two weeks is amazing.

The way I see it we need Wizkids to announce and release new stuff that will reinvigorate the current crop of content creators, and attract new creators.

A newly energised content creator base creating new content helps promote the game attracting new players, etc etc.

I think what these three podcasts have highlighted for me is how fragile the current state of the game is. It feels we are at a crucial moment in the life of the game. We are waiting for Wizkids to make a decision (assuming they haven’t made it) and announce it to the world.

I’ve enjoyed these three episodes of A Double Double ‘n Dice I hope they follow them up with an episode on the feed back they have had.

Is it reasonable to expect…?

Game Design, Maths, stats, Stonemaier Games

One of the criticisms by some reviewers about games from Stonemaier Games is that they are unbalanced, not play tested enough.

But how fair a criticism is this?

For this post I’m going to look at Tapestry. Which is a game that has this accusation made against it. And recently had a pack of rebalanced civilisation mats released. I may also use the odd game from their catalog to illustrate a point.

Before I go any further I need to give a disclaimer of some sort. Firstly I have no idea how many play testers, how much play testing was done, or what the play test process is at Stonemaier games. And I’ve made no attempt to find out. I’m also not a mathematician or statistician. So there are likely major flaws in my maths and logic. Please feel free to correct me in the comments. For this post I’m going to ignore solo play testing because I don’t play solo, and I don’t want to look up the solo rules. Oh and I have been accused of being a bit of a Stonemaier Games fanboy.

In Tapestry and it’s three expansions we have 41 civilization mats broken down as follows:

  • Tapestry – 16 civilization mats
  • Plans & Ploys – 10 civilization mats
  • Arts & Architecture – 5 civilization mats
  • Fantasies & Futures – 10 civilization mats

So to look at how feasible and reasonable it is to play test Tapestry and its expansions I will be working out the number of combinations of civilization mats. For this exercise the order doesn’t matter. Hence combinations instead of permutations.

To work out the number of possible combinations of civilization mats I’m using the following Binomial coefficients formula:

Where n is the set size or in our case number of civilization cards, and r is size of sets we are choosing, aka player count for us.

What follows is the number of combinations for Tapestry and its expansions based on player count.

As expected it’s going to be a lot easier to play test all the combinations once at the lower player counts than the higher ones.

But you need to repeatedly play these combinations to make sure that what would appear to be an unbalanced civilization mat is in fact that, and not just appearing to be so due to other factors.

I would argue that at the higher player counts (4 and 5) it’s unreasonable to expect all the combinations to be play tested. Just from a time and number of play testers basis. Let alone any monetary factor. I’m almost tempted to add in 3 players with the expansions to this statement as well.

So how would you even attempt to spot unbalanced or as some like to call them broken or over powered civilization mats?

You could use feedback from the lower player counts to focus in on particular civilization mats. However this over looks the fact that certain civilization mats might be better against others at lower player counts, but when played in higher player counts actually weaker or on par with others. Or that certain civilization mats are better at higher player counts but poor at lower counts.

Plus in all of this we aren’t even factoring in the random elements of the game such as tapestry cards.

In reality play testing will not just focus on one player count but be a mixture of all of them.

I think the big take away from this is it’s just not possible to play test every combination at all player counts. Just on the base game approximately 8000 games that would need playing to do it once.

There has to be a certain point where you say “we’ve tested as much as we can”. Or the game would never get released or be so expensive to cover the increased testing costs it won’t make any money.

It’s only once the game gets out in the wild and in the hands of lots of players that things start to come to light. I do like that Stonemaier capture play data and feedback this into the design and provide updates to the games.

I can see a follow up argument that some of the civilization mats were obviously unbalanced, just too powerful. That I don’t have a response to. I’d need more info about the companies testing and feedback.

What are your thoughts on the feasibility of testing a game?

  • Elwes, R. (2010) Mathematics 1001: absolutely everything that matters in mathematics. London: Quercus.

Here be dragons!

Game day

At last I got to play some games. It seems so long since I last played anything. But in reality it’s only been since Tuesday.

I did open Wyrmspan yesterday. And although I’m excited to play the game. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed with the box and lack of insert. Two nice sized game trays for tokens and eggs. That’s it. Nothing to organise the cards etc.

I would also add that if you bought the deluxe upgrade kit like I did that replaces the cardboard resource tokens and metallic cardboard coins with wooden resource tokens and metal coins. The game trays don’t hold the wooden tokens. I used them for the metal coins and eggs.

To organise the cards and to stop them getting damaged in the box I used some old MtG cardboard deck boxes.

But that aside I did get Wyrmspan to the table today.

This afternoon Charlene, her daughter, and Colin joined me to play Wyrmspan.

I love the theme of Wyrmspan. Why wouldn’t I? How Connie Vogelmann came up with 175 wyrms aka dragons I don’t know. Even more impressive is the imagination and art of Clementine Campardou.

I really love the art in Wyrmspan. Yes it’s subjective, and there are those out there that don’t like the art. Which is cool. We are allowed to have a difference of opinion.

The changes made to Wyrmspan from Wingspan really work for me. They make the game more thinky, and more gamer oriented.

Although Wingspan had the awesome table presence with the bird feeder dice tower. I don’t miss it or the dice for resources. I love being able to chose which of the four resources I need. Although getting resources or eggs is a bit more challenging.

I love being able to squeeze out more actions on a turn by gaining more coins or even carrying coins over to the next round.

The guilds are a lovely touch. Something you can’t ignore because moving round the guild track gets you much needed resources.

But there are other touches that are quality of life improvements such as the built in player aid on the player boards. Or the larger end of round bonus tiles, easier to read.

One of these wyrms you would not want to be caught miss pronouncing!

Also a major change is the limitation on the number of times you can run your “engine” on each of the cave complexes. And that the cost to rerun them gets more expensive. It stops that Wingspan last round where all you did was run the grass lands and just laying eggs every turn.

That’s not all of the changes to Wyrmspan. There are some great content creators out there that cover this stuff way better than I could. For me the sum of these changes elevate the game to another level that would appeal to more hardcore/experienced gamers.

For the record Charlene thought she liked Wyrmspan more than Wingspan. In fact it was posing her a difficult question. Did she keep Wingspan and all of its expansions? Why would she need to keep Wingspan?

I can see where Charlene is coming from. I think I too prefer Wyrmspan over Wingspan. Although I think there is space for both (just) in my collection. Hear me out. I think the theme is more attractive to none gamers. Plus it’s a bit more accessible as well.

Don’t get either of us wrong. We still like Wingspan and would happily play it. It’s just we like Wyrmspan more.

History will record I won my first game of Wyrmspan with a score of 106.

We followed Wyrmspan with a game of Parks.

Up until this afternoon my only other plays of Parks was as a two player with Diego. Which it works as really well. And will be one of the many games I will take with me next time I visit Nathan.

But wow!

I really liked Parks at the higher player count. That added competition for spaces and the harder decision of when to use your camp fire was exactly as I thought it’d be.

Apparently the history books show Charlene won this game by 2 points.

A big thank you to Charlene, her daughter, and Colin for taking the time out to play these games with me.

Survive

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

It’s my penultimate shift at my current store today before transferring over on Sunday. But what a penultimate shift it will be. It’s going to be an eleven hour shift instead of nine.

There will most definitely be a knock on effect for the final shift tomorrow. I’m going to be knackered to say the least.

But the thought of playing some games on Sunday is helping me get through these final two shifts.

Especially since my copy of Wyrmspan and the deluxe components upgrade arrived yesterday.

Earlier in the week two new games also arrived, Tournament At Avalon, and Senso Battle for Japan. Both games where trick taking is the core mechanic.

These ended up in the collection due to me mistakingly watching a couple of YouTube videos, and seeing they were not too expensive on Amazon.

My get to the table list (image above) has been updated to reflect their arrival and addition to the collection. Whilst doing this I realised I didn’t have Fuji Flush on the list. So it’s been added to.

I’ve kept the games I played with Diego Tuesday evening on the list because I want to play them with a higher player count. They were fun at two player but sometimes at the higher player counts the experience will be different, more cut throat, frustrating (as more chances of others blocking what you want to do).

The plan on Sunday is (and I’m hoping Charlene is cool with it) to play Wyrmspan. Followed by, time allowing, one of the two new trick taking games.

In the meantime I just need to survive these last two shifts.

Wait I played some games!

game night

So last night I got to play some games with Diego. Ben wasn’t able to make it, so no Dune Imperium Uprising. But I have started a cunning plan to get the game to the table. Which is basically creating an event to play the game on the clubs discord server at the start of March. Why then? Part 2 of the Denis Villeneuve take on the Dune books comes out at the cinema that weekend. We’ll see if there are any takers.

Our first game of the evening saw the return of the push your luck dice game Zombie Dice. Which we played with Diego’s daughter. It’s been a long long time since I last got the game to the table. According to the bgstat app 6 years and 11 months.

We followed up with one of his daughter’s favourite games about dragons and jewels. I didn’t record this game in the bgstat app. But I won. Making up for Diego’s two Zombie Dice victories.

Once Diego’s daughter had gone to bed we played Parks with the first expansion Nightfall.

Nightfall adds “…new Park Cards featuring new rewards and all new artwork from the Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series, including the 17 parks not represented in the base game. … new Year Cards and Bonus Scoring opportunities, and … new Camping mechanic.”

What I like about the expansion is more parks (more cards is always cool) and new mechanics that don’t add to the overhead of playing the game. But do add to the choices you have to make.

In this game the camera was a much more fought over item, swapping possession several times.

The new year cards with the end game scoring were a big improvement. My initial card gave me 2 points for every 3 resources I had at the end of the game. These worked so much better than the core games year cards.

Loved the camp sites. Some great abilities that I really wanted to activate. Particularly the ones that gave me lots of resources.

In the end after our year of hiking I managed to get the victory by a point.

Our final game of the evening was Sea Salt and Paper.

When this game first arrived I was taken aback by the diminutive size of the box. It is so tiny. It is pocket size. No chance of sleeving these cards unless you rehome them.

The cards in this game look beautiful.

Plus once you get used to the iconography you can start to really enjoy the simplicity of the game play. It really is an enjoyable card game.

As the photo below shows Diego won this game. I do like it when a game has a social media winners card.

Decisions, decisions

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

With a planned gaming session imminent (tomorrow night) and one next Sunday the hard decision arises of what to play.

So I carried out a brief exercise in the bgstat app of tagging some games that I’d like to get to the table.

It’s a combination of new additions to the collection (which will hit the unplayed challenge when played) and one or two games I’ve played recently that need to get played again.

Dune Imperium Uprising is the plan for tomorrow evening. Time allowing one or two of the smaller quicker games on the list might also get played.

There is the obvious elephant in the room can’t get played yet, as it hasn’t arrived, Wyrmspan.

Then Sunday because at the moment it’s just Charlene and myself it might be a chance to get the roll and writes on the list to the table.

I’d like to complete Welcome to the Moon and its story based campaign. Yes it’s not on the list. But still it’d be nice to get it to the table.

Enough of the blue sky thinking. Let’s see how well this plan holds up when it gets put into action.

Wyrmspan delay gets me all political

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

As I write this latest “hey I’m still alive, sorry to disappoint” post I’ve not long woke up after a late shift and enjoyed my morning coffee.

We are ten days into February and I’ve played one board game.

There is some gaming planned for Tuesday evening with Diego. I think Ben is coming along as well. I’m really looking forward to that. Plus a week Sunday there should be some gaming taking place as well.

Neither of these two planned sessions will see Wyrmspan hitting the table. The UK and EU won’t start seeing their copies dropping through letterboxes for at least another week. Jamey on his latest live stream explained that this delay was due to “current events” in the Red Sea area. That’s the polite way of not getting political about the whole genocide and war crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza at the moment. Which despite the pathetic attempts by the UK’s most corrupt Government to justify their involvement in attacks on a sovereign nation Yemen, is linked to why there are any delays in shipping via the Red Sea.

Knowing this is the reason why I’m not playing or about to play Wyrmspan helps. It’s an inconvenience. Which doesn’t even register when you think of the horrors and suffering going on by those in Gaza at the moment. I’d gladly put up with even longer delays if it meant that this genocide stopped. And you know what? I feel so bad even mentioning this inconvenience in the same sentence as the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

I suppose whilst I’m going all political one of the surprising things about the most documented genocide and war crimes of the last one hundred years is the silence of so many in the boardgaming space. Many spoke up (rightly) on such issues as BLM, trans rights etc. But now with genocide, war crimes, and apartheid going on right in front of their eyes. All of a sudden they have lost their voices.

Their silence makes them complicit in those acts as far as I’m concerned. And most definitely hypocrites.

After the Second World War and the horrors of the holocaust came to light many over the following decades asked questions such as “how could the German people let this happen?”, or “what would I do if this was going on?”

It breaks my heart that we are now in the situation that every single one of us can now answer those questions.

For so many its remain silent, justify the atrocities, attack and try to silence those speaking out. All actions that enable those deplorable acts to be carried out.

At least with those supporting the genocide you know what horrible examples of humanity they are, and I know who to avoid.

It’s the silence I don’t get. I can only assume that it’s out of self interest they aren’t saying anything. That they think that if they speak out against it they will lose work, free games, etc. from those that support it, and vice versa.

Hypocrites.

I’m getting off my high horse now and my simplified views on this emotive subject.

Regular content to resume soon.