The Blog is taking on a new look just because. Many thanks as ever to Dave Stafford for the new logo which I’m delighted with.
Electro Shock Treatment
I’ll also be bringing THIS to Brocon. Don’t be worried. It’s not like it’s an electric shock game where there are no winners just people laughing at you. For no reason I can think of it proved very popular at the last Knavecon and I think it will fit in with the Brocon vibe perfectly 🙂
Huzzah!
Vic
This ship is very small, THIS ship is far away
Constonopolos is the grown up cousin of Puerto Rico. Bohemian and edgy, what Puerto Rico wishes it could be
If you’ve played Puerto Rico you’ll be in familiar territory. It’s worker placementy but with a different cock blockery. If you haven’t played Puerto Rico you’ve missed out on a classic game and should get thee to a game shop and try it.
Constantinopolis is a five player game that in theory can be played in 90 minutes, by a silent order of monks on speed who have spent the last several years learning the rules. Our group didn’t tick any of those boxes. I refuse to be drawn on how long it took to play out and I ask the jury to disregard any evidence they may have heard
The game plays out over ten turns in which a number of sub steps happen. The first is like Puerto Rico where you pick a role however in this case roles are bid on so it’s very possible to force others into overpaying
Buildings are bought which come in a variety of forms and functions. Resource producing, ones you cash in resources for money and fame (the games score), ones that give you a few extra swapping abilities or cost reduction. Ones that score you bonus points at the end
Key to the game as well are contracts which are drawn in various quantities and take the form of supply this or that resource or transport this person. In what you wonder. In ships of various sizes I say which you previously purchased.
Each turn ships are loaded and launched with contract goods and previously launched ships move closer to harbor and payment in fame and money
There are half a dozen ways of scoring fame and money and no foolproof strategy to secure victory. It’s fast (ha) and scoring is close from start to finish which I really like.
I got to play this game a few months back and was instantly hooked. I acquired a copy of it soon after as a swapse. My copy was in German but it’s multilingual and all icon driven. We as per tradition got a few rules wrong but not enough to effect our evenings entertainment.
I prefer this game to Puerto Rico and I’m a big fan of Puerto Rico so I highly recommend it. If you only buy one worker placement Puerto Rico type game this year make sure it’s Constantinopolis
I’ll be wheeling it out at brocon if you want to take it for a test drive
Huzzah!
Vic
At Brocon I will Mostly Be Playing…
Planning to bring the following to Brocon for people to try out.
- Roll through the ages
- El grande
- Ribbit
- Lotr confrontation
- Constonopolis
- Fury of Dracula
- Lords of waterdeep
- Twilight struggle
- Netrunner
- Hey that’s my fish
- Robo rally
- Zombicide
- King of toyko
- Modern art
- Skull and roses
- Werewolf
- Eight minute empire
- Cards against humanity
- Hive
- Connections
- Zombie dice
- Study in emerald
Will throw in a few others if they take my fancy between now and then
Huzzah!
Vic
RUN! Like a light breeze
Red in the face, puffing and panting and ready to give up and that’s BEFORE I start running. Zombies Run! is a game I’ve had on my phone for ages and only recently got around to playing. It’s clever. At it’s heart it’s a running app but it does it from an angle that will appeal to a gamer. In this case running for your life from packs of zombies.
The game itself consists of a number of episodes which can be set to either half or a full hour. You start off at your own pace and a story plays out where you’ve been sent to a survivors base and wind up becoming a runner for them and have to scavenge resources from the locality. As it plays along a number of characters are introduced and a back story expands. The whole time you’re jogging (or in my case stumbling) speed-ups are introduced to your pace by the appearance of zombies whom you need to outrun by increasing your pace. The program tells you how close they are and a handy sonar type blip lets you know if they’re gaining or you are losing them. A few minutes running is often enough to outpace them.
On your travels you also pick up random items such as medi-kits, food, clothing and so on all of which can be used later in the game. What’s really nice about the app is you never have to touch it while you’re running. It handles your inventory by itself. The story and voice acting is good. We’re not talking James Earl Jones but it’s good enough quality and very believable in the setting. So far the story is interesting and enough mysterious events are introduced to make you want to find out what’s going to happen next.
Items you find in the game can be dropped to distract zombies if you’ve run out of puff and those you keep after you complete a episode can later be used to build and expand able station via a simple farmville type interface.
There’s a number of extras outside of the episodes like a radio station that plays your music as tracks whilst inter spacing it with chat and events, challenges like running to a GPS point and back to recover supply drops and there’s a little bit of multi-player which I need to investigate.
So far it’s early days for me with this, but I’ll do another post on it when I’ve used it a bit more.
All in all I’m really enjoying it. It’s clever. The sounds of zombies closing in as you sprint is exhilarating and how the whole thing fits around your play list of music it very well done. This is my first proper Augmented Reality (AR) game and it’s better than I expected. I have high hopes for this whole area of entertainment. It’s surprising how the brain is fooled into a slightly different reality just through the audio and on the first run I was nearly looking behind me to see if I was being pursued or expecting to see a building that was being described to me as being just around the next corner. I struggle with running, it’s not something I’ve ever been really good at but I do see this as a big help with training. More soon.
Now if you’ll excuse me a pack of zombies are closing in, I have to run
Huzzah!
Vic
If it ain’t BROCON don’t fix it
Brocon,
Limericks Games and Anime convention is rolling around once again on the weekend of the 19th July in UL. Bigger and Better than Ever
Myself and some of the Knaves will be there running boardgaming sessions if anyone wants to drop down and say hello and try a few games out.
See you there
Huzzah!
Vic
Coup the Gras Thur (Part 2)
In the same way as there’s something about Mary, there’s something about Augustus. It intrigues me and I was lucky enough to pick it up as a swapsee with one of the guys from the gaming group who shall remain nameless and Polish.
Augustus is a game I’ve spoken about before and had a neat pictures of Augustus Gloop to lead it in, Unfortunately apart from that there’s feck all other puns on the name so we’ll have to run without one.
Augustus is a card game with similarities to Stone Age, 7 Wonders and Iliad. It’s 6 players which is nice and it plays through in a relatively short time, say half an hour plus (or an hour maybe), so it’s at the upper end of filler games. There’s a bit to it. In essence it’s a grab what you can can before the other guy does with a little bit of push your luck. There’s a bit of offensive play it in where you can upset other players plans but it’s more about getting the best score you can before the others do.
OK It’s a BIT like bingo if I’m being honest (rare) without the smoking and blue rinses but there is a lot less luck involved although luck does play a part in it. It’s a good bit like bingo when the other players in the group shout BINGO! when they fulfil a card. Honestly, the gaming evenings just fly by
For your buck you get a very good quality game, that’s very well priced. It’s a fine game for filling in and I definitely see myself playing it again every so often
I didn’t win. I didn’t win by ONE point. Just barely losing is way worse than being hammered, having a little hope and seeing it crushed is a terrible thing when you’re on the receiving end.
It’s a good thing I don’t bare grudges…
Huzzah!
Vic
Coup the Gras Thur (Part1)
“When I get to your age I want my name to be a Verb too”. Quote of the evening. The Expression “To Drax it” came from playing Powergrid. It means to fatally overextend yourself. In the case of Powergrid to spend all your money on a fantastic powerstation but then realise you have nothing left over to pay for fuel for it. Fur coat, no plutonium if you will.
I have a love hate relationship with Powergrid. I love it, it hates me. Well that’s not true, I’m fond of it and it hates me. I have never EVER won a game of it and I can’t say why. Just like Modern Art the maths are complicated and unlike other games where I get a feel for them. I can’t put my finger on a way of winning Powergrid. That is all.
As as game it’s good. It’s been around as long as Adam’s fig leaf and it’s one of the popular kids like Catan, Caracassone. Ticket to ride. It’s a wholesome, safe, nice game. It hates me.
Drax had a new shiny copy of it so it was important to play it and put our mark on it. Guess who won! ? wasn’t me. Guess who came last?… good guess.
Powergrid is a worker placement game with a limited bit of map based conquest. Each player takes the part of a power company who bid and build ever more efficient power stations and try and expand the amount of households they power. Powering houses equals more income that can be spent on building more connections, better power stations and most importantly fuel to power them. The cock blockery (because it wouldn’t be a real game if there wasn’t some) comes in outbidding your opponents on power stations, making them pay more than they should for them in bidding, bumping up the price of fuel and sneaking in ahead of someone else and stealing a good spot on the map.
The game is pure attrition, make the others pay more than you for everything whilst you pay less and you should win… well I’m still waiting on a win.
the game has more expansions than Malibu Stacey has outfits, some of which I’ve played and have been good fun.
It’s a fine game. It’s NOT an essential game for your collection. If I wound up with a copy of it I’d be happy as a pig in muck. I’m quite happy to play it and one day I’m sure I may even win but there’s a lot of other games out there that are better. The Maths in the game are a bit of a pain especially later as you’re figuring out what to buy and it does lend itself to analysis paralysis if your group indulges it.
If you get your hands on this game at a good price go for it. If you get a chance to play it, go for it. Chances are it doesn’t hate you
Huzzah!
Vic
Hiving off work
Try and imagine this review being read in a David Attenborough voice or if you’re too lazy to do that I’ll imagine you are imagining it being read in a David Attenborough voice, either will work fine. It’s about a game called Hive and it’s got bugs in.
If you want to be doubly lazy just skip the next bit and go buy Hive it’s really good, it’s 1v1 btw
Hive has been described as being a bit like chess. I think it’s more a bit like jiu jitsu to be honest (but with way less punches to the head). It’s a Perfect holiday game. Quick. Simple. Cheap Portable and it won’t set off the security scanners leading to uncomfortable squatting and coughing. I’ve brought this with me on holidays for a number of years and it always gets taken out at some stage.
Unlike a lot of other games the theme does match the game. You can picture a big tangle of bugs battling it out complete with cartoon smoke and whiz-lines. Tasmanian devil style. If you’re having difficulty imaging it email me and I’ll image you imaging it and it will all be hunky dory.
The objective of the game is to capture the enemies slow moving Queen by boxing her in on six sides or her hexagonalilty (C) with any combination of friendly and enemy insects. (Yes it’s possible to finish the enemy off evil tyrant style with your queen or draw the game by killing both at once)
Your army of bugs consist of a motley crew ranging from handy (ants) to awkward (spiders) and just like any decent God they can all move in mysterious ways (and by sheer coincidence walk on water).
Each player starts the game with a dozen or so (count them in the picture) insects of various types and takes it in turn adding new insects to the tangle (called a swarm) or moving existing ones around to try and lock down the aforementioned queen. You have a limited amount of bugs on your side so tying up Two or more enemy bugs with One of yours is a good way to get ahead and give you more guys to surround the queen.
The game is VERY easy to learn, the rules could be written on an A6 and one game in you know what’s what. Strategy is another thing, you really need to think ahead and lead your opponent into a trap. It’s a very satisfying game I find as well to win. Most games are very close at the end and it can change quite quickly mid game. It’s also a little bit different, there’s no board, the pieces touch up against each other domino style (the game not the pizza) and there’s a lovely feel to the pieces. It’s available in a number of different materials, wooden, plastic, graphite and sapient pearwood. It’s also available virtually on a variety of platforms and if you keep your eye out it sometimes appears free on steam or the app store
This really is a game worth having, especially good if you have two too many at a games night and don’t want to kick them out.
Try it. Better still come to Knavecon at the end of August and I’ll play a quick game against you and you can see what you think.
Now hopefully Constonopolis this thur, but then again..
Huzzah!
Vic
A Welcome Break
Well then, I’m off on holidays for two weeks which will give you a welcome break 🙂
Huzzah!
Vic
Victor Gannon Games 