On Board Gaming in Bristol

[danieldwilliam]

I spent the weekend with my sister , my brother-in-law and Bluebird in Bristol. Well most of the weekend.

I have the quarterly Unlock Democracy Council meeting on Saturday in London, so I got up early, went to London for the day.

A useful and interesting conversation about our strategy immediately after the election and for the coming year. I may have used the words capability and resource about a dozen times. Even when not being an accountant I’m such an accountant.

In between Unlock duties I managed to eat some food, chat with my family, drink some beer and play some board games

On Friday we played Forbidden Island which is a co-operative game based on treasure hunting on a sinking island. You have to work as a team to pick up four MacGuffins and escape the island before it sinks beneath the sea. Quite a simple game but good fun.

On Saturday night we played the Village. This is a competitive game where you try and steer a mediaeval family through three generations of toil. It’s very complicated. Complicated to the point where I was struggling to keep a track of what was going on. Very enjoyable.

We also managed a few rounds of Kingdom Builder, which was fine, enjoyable, but not as exciting as the others.

Finally on Sunday we played Pandemic. Another co-operative game, you have to work together to contain and cure four diseases that threaten to run out of control. This was definitely the pick of the bunch.

It’s made me think about developing a board game of my own and on the trip back from Bristol I made really good progress turning some vague ideas I’ve had into the mechanics for a game. More anon.

Listened to Rumours, whilst trying to explain why Lindsey Bellingham is a bell-end then ear-wormed myself with the Corrs entire back catalogue.

On the journey back I finished Battle Cry of Freedom. Thoughts anon.

Comments

[andrewducker]

Yup. Kingdom Builder is fine, but it's not very exciting.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

On reflection I think it is that the bulk of the scoring happens at the end of the game.

In Carcasonne, there is scoring all the way through, sometimes in little bits, sometimes in big bits. There is also scoring at the end. If you’ve played well you can sweep from last place to first place through the game end scoring. You can get an idea of where the game end scoring will go and react.

And other players action have an effect on the in-game and game end scoring.

I think that was what was missing from Kingdom Builder.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I love Pandemic :)

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

I find a number of Donald X Vaccarino's designs are like Kingdom Builder - they work as games but there's no real tension or excitement.

My favourite game of his (aside from Dominion - which I admire more than like) is Monster Factory - especially as Nina Paley (of Sita Sings The Blues fame) co-designed and illustrated it.

As you liked Forbidden Desert and Pandemic, you may need to know that the designer, Matt Leacock, has a Thunderbirds co-op game on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/the-thunderbirds-co-operative-board-game-by-matt-l/description) at present.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I like Dominion but I've not played it a lot.

It got a good outing over Christmas when my Dad (oh, I've never played a game like this before, whilst "learning" the game (remind me how the scoring works again) and "getting the hang of it" (the Provinces are worth how much?) comprehensively beat the rest of the family.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

the Thunderbirds game looks interesting.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Is Village the one where you pick careers for your people, and one is Going Abroad, and it's a viable strategy to kill someone off young to get a good spot in the graveyard and therefore points? I found that one... a bit bleak!

Pandemic I really like.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

That's the game.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

You need to listen to the songs "The Devil's Infantry" and "Dixieland" by Steve Earle - they nicely encapsulate the common soldier's experience of both sides of the War Between The States.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation. If they are on Spotify I'll give them a spin tonight.

Interesting use of the War Between the States there.

I'm tending more towards Stross' Second Great Slaveholders' Revolt or my own War of Southern Dickwadery.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I'd put myself in the boots of the characters in the songs :)