Tigris and Euphrates

I purchased two board games online that are on their way:

Mr. Jack

Players – 2
Play Time – 30 Minutes
BoardGameGeek: link

I heard that this was an exceptional board game for two players. L and I are not in the habit of pouring a glass of wine and busting out a board game, but perhaps this will be a good start in that direction.

The game involves one player playing the part of Jack and the other player trying to determine which of the eight suspects on the board is Jack before Jack escapes and wins the game. The investigator may only make ONE accusation, so it better be right.

The graphical style is really well done and should make the game a joy to play:

Tigris and Euphrates

I’m not excited to play this the first time, I’m excited to play it the third time. Very excited. Consider this another game where great complexity can arise out of simple rules. This is also another game where your success is judged by your weakest area, not your strongest, so you need to be equally strong in each color of the scoring mechanism.

In the land of board game creation there are few kings, but the man who made this game is considered one of them.

Designer: Reiner Knizia
Players: 2-4 (Supposedly good with 2 or 4)
Play Time: 90 minutes
BoardGameGeek: link

I watched a video (similar to the Board Games with Scott videos. Frighteningly similar actually. Where do these furry men come from and am I destined to be like them?) where Reiner actually calls in and describes the rules and gameplay himself. He also discusses how he comes up with a game design which was pretty helpful for me to hear. (Sadly, I also have to face the fact that most of these epic ‘creators’ are left-brained types who forge their games from focus, determination, intelligence, math, strict regimented adherence to game testing and research, and copious amounts of notes. I’m more of a “dude! you know wha’d be cool?” type of game inventor. Which is why my ideas don’t progress much farther than scribbles on a piece of a graph paper. For example, Cloud Surfer: Sample 1, Sample 2)

It is a tile based game where tiles can be placed almost anywhere on the board; which can be somewhat daunting for beginning players.

As a player, you are represented by a symbol, not a color: Bow and Arrow, Clay Pot, Bull Head, or Lion.
Each player has four leaders (colors): Priest (Red), Farmer (Blue), Trader (Green), and Leader (Black)
There are four major types of tiles: Red (Temple), Blue (Farm/River), Green (Market), Black (Settlement)
There are four areas where you can get points (cubes): Red, Blue, Green, Black, treasure (wooden cube, wildcard point)
Your objective is to be the player with the strongest weakest asset. Another way to think of scoring is to group your points (cubes) into ‘sets’, so your score is generally equivalent to each RBGB set you have. (If you only have one red, blue, green, and black ‘set’ then your score is 1. If you have one set, but six other black cubes on top of that — it doesn’t matter, because you are judged by your weakest score.)

One of each of the colors of leaders can all hang out in a kingdom (a contiguous group of tiles with at least one leader in it) together as long as there are no conflicts of like-colored leaders from different players in the same Kingdom. No one owns the kingdoms and the kingdoms will change a lot as you play. You can try and isolate yourself and only have your own leaders hanging out together, but it may prove to be a poor strategy in the end.

Problems arise when two kingdoms get joined together. Whoo boy.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Platform: PC, xbox 360

I haven’t squeezed every drop of goodness out of GTA IV yet, but I may pick this game up today for the 360 because I have a ton of junk to trade in and I’m interested in the game dynamic here. You play either Military Human or Evil Alien Invaders and there are several different classes/specilizations within those two subsets. Medic, Heavy, Engineer, that kind of thing. Every game is objective-based where there are many steps to winning and each step wins your side a territory and pushes the other side back. (i.e. Build a Bridge, Put a bomb in this place, Get the tank, Drive it to this location and shoot this. Win.) The game will generate ‘tasks’ for players automatically on the fly based on what is happening (save dude X, destroy vehicle turret Y) which gives new players something concrete to focus on rather than the overwhelming chaos around them and makes sure that the game’s objectives are clear for everyone. There are big maps (due to mega-texture technology) and all sorts of vehicle combat, but everyone ends up gathering together around the focus of the action so you are never rarely will you just be wandering aimlessly without anyone else in sight. I hear you die a lot. A lot.

Edit: A lot. Jeez, I was so wrong that I have to come back and correct myself here. I was telling you propaganda about the PC version that I’d read. Turns out the 360 version just leaves you wondering fuck all in a heap of chaos. This is going to take some serious getting used to. Learning curve ahoy. And it doesn’t look all that crem fresh either, but if the game dynamic is strong it won’t need to. But seriously, I can’t turn my perspective whilst driving? Really?