Tag Archives: ascension

The Problem with Game Length

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Once upon a time, a game called Caylus (2005) was released, and it was quickly lauded as the best game ever. It soon climbed the ranking charts on BGG, and there was much hysteria about whether it would surpass Puerto Rico (2002) as the new #1. (Spoiler: it did not.) And so when I sat down to play it on December 14, 2005, I had high expectations.

They were not met.

OK, I’ll admit, I didn’t understand at the time that the hype was over the worker-placement mechanism, which created a whole new industry of eurogames, including ones that I quite enjoy such as Agricola (2007), Le Havre (2008), and A Feast for Odin (2016) — which seems to suggest that I particularly enjoy the somewhat smaller Uwe Rosenberg worker-placement game industry. But I also love Viticulture (2015) and much of Richard Breese’s Key series, depending on how you define “worker placement”. I mean how many games can say they were the basis of a mechanic tag on BGG? (Dozens, I suppose, with pointless arguments over whether a game was “first” or not, when it’s really a question of whether it was “inspirational”*.) And how many games can say they created stupid arguments over terminology started by people too lazy to understand the words they’re using? Continue reading →

Deckbuilding Expansion: Ascension, Part Four: From Elements to Ancients

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Ascension Core GameAscension continues to be one of the most popular deckbuilders out there. So, following in the footsteps of my previous articles, A Deckbuilding Look at Ascension (#1), Deckbuilding Expansion: Ascension, Part One — From Chronicle to Heroes (#2-4), Deckbuilding Expansion: Ascension, Part Two — From Vigil to Champions (#5-8), and Deckbuilding Expansion: Ascension, Part Three: From Dreamscape to Shadows (#9-10),  I’m looking at sets 11 and 12, to see how they changed the game, for better or for worse, and how they ended a second era of Ascension, that had big ideas (almost) every time. Continue reading →

New to Me: Winter 2018 — Another Season of Co-ops

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For the last few years, I’ve been working on a book about the design of cooperative tabletop games with my co-author, Christopher Allen. We’ve recently finalized a contract with a publisher, and we hope to be offering the book to the public before the end of the year. That means that it’s our last chance to consider new co-ops before we lock the text down on July 1. So, this quarter, I played a lot of co-op games, and they’re all discussed here. (This isn’t the first time I’ve had a co-op heavy quarter, and it’s all been because of this book.)

As usual these ratings are my own feelings about the game, as a medium-weight gamer; they don’t necessarily represent the overall quality of the game. In fact this time, I’m well aware that I low-rated a few different games that are well-loved, and might be good designs for the right audience. And, as usual, these games are new to me, though a few are slightly older.

The Great

Robinson Crusoe (2012). Co-op #1. This is already a classic co-op — and a well-received one. After a play, I can see why. The heart of the game is serious resource-management play. If I wrote an elevator pitch for this game, it’d be, “what if Agricola were a co-op?” So you have to feed everyone, and that’s tough enough because it requires dangerous hunting and slightly dangerous gathering. But you’re simultaneously choosing a lot of other actions, such as exploring your island, building inventions, improving your shelter, and doing whatever’s required to finish the game successfully.

Robinson Crusoe is one of those games where you simultaneously feel like you need to do everything, and where you don’t ever have enough actions to do so — which is a tension that’s at the heart of many very successful designs. This feeds very well into the co-op system, creating a nail-biting game where things seem to be getting constantly worse, as your team becomes increasingly wounded and demoralized, but where you’re simultaneously advancing toward victory. Continue reading →

Deckbuilding Expansion: Ascension, Part Three: From Dreamscape to Shadows

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Ascension Core GameAscension is one of the prolific deckbuilders out there. In the past I’ve written about the first eight releases in Deckbuilding Expansions, Part One: From Chronicles to Heroes and Deckbuilding Expansions, Part Two: From Vigil to Champions. As I said at the time, I wanted to discuss how these expansions “influenced the Ascension game and deckbuilding in general”

Since my last article, in August of 2015, several new Ascension expansions have appeared, but these new releases represent a change in how they’re produced: they’re no longer arranged into paired blocks that work well together. In fact, they’re on longer even lightly linked as was the case with the seventh and eighth sets; instead each expansion now feature totally disparate mechanics As a player I’m not fond of these change, because some of the games no longer feel like they have enough cards. As a designer, however, I’m thrilled that it allows me to explore that many more mechanics.

Because of these changes, new articles in this series will be talking about individual sets, rather than coherent blocks. This article discusses sets nine and ten, both of which were pretty feature rich.
Continue reading →

New to Me: Spring 2017 — So Much Co-op!

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I’ve co-authored a pretty extensive book on the design of cooperative games. (It’s currently seeking a publisher.) As a result, I’m usually quick to suggest a new co-op game hit the table … and a lot of them did this Spring. Sadly, I thought most of them were bad!

in any case, this is my listing of new-to-me games played this Spring. As usual, they’re evaluated by my personal likes, not their intrinsic quality. 

The Very Good

Kingdomino (2016). This Bruno Cathala game is a short and simple filler. You essentially draft domino-tiles, with your draft order based on the quality of your last tile: the better the tile you pick, the later you’ll go in the next draft!

The object is to build your tiles (which depict terrains and victory point multipliers for those terrains) into huge groups to score maximal points.

There’s not a lot of complexity here: you take a tile, your place a tile. Nonetheless, the game is a lot of fun and places very nicely fast. This may be because I always like creative games of this sort. However, there’s also just enough choice to keep the game interesting. It’s a fine little filler. (In fact, it almost made my great listing.) Continue reading →

What Makes 10 Great Games Great

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I’ve been keeping track of my games played for almost fourteen full years. That means that I have a pretty robust listing of games that have worked well enough to get numerous replays from me over the years. They represent a set of great games, with features that any would-be great game could endeavor to repeat. So this week I’m going to go through my listing of those top games and offer my opinions on either of their best features — the ones that make them so worth playing and replaying. Continue reading →

New to Me: Summer 2016

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Summer was a nice quarter for gaming, with a number of releases really excelling. Here’s a look. Remember as always that these are “new to me”, which means that they might be brand-new releases or something a bit older that I hadn’t yet seen.

The Great

Agricola Revised Edition (2016). Yep, this is a pretty old game by now. The new edition has better rules and cleans up the cards a considerable amount, producing a more balanced game. I recommended Agricola before, and it’s only better now. Continue reading →

A Deckbuilding Look at Tyrants of the Underdark

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Tyrants CoverClearly, deckbuilding games are still a going concern, as I’ve been able to write about two new designs this month: first Mystic Vale (2016) and now Tyrants of the Underdark (2016).

With that said, deckbuilders are growing more outré too. Both of this month’s designs have basic mechanics that you could have found in second-generation deckbuilders following Dominion (2008), but they also incorporate much weirder elements, like the plastic cards of Mystic Vale … and the plastic armies of Tyrants.

The Game

Tyrants of the Underdark (2016) is a game in two parts.

On the one hand, some cards give you Influence. That’s used to buy cards from a central tableau. The default cards can be used to generate influence or power, while a random array of six market cards can provide players with more varied powers.

On the other hand, some cards give you Power. That’s used to affect the game board. You can use your influence to deploy troops or to assassinate troops, slowly expanding across the Underdark and taking control of central locations, which are worth victory points.

Continue reading →

New to Me: Winter 2016 — So Much Very Good!

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Winter of 2016 was a somewhat unusual season of gaming for me. I played some new games and some older games that were new to me. Though I didn’t play any games that I ranked as truly great, there seemed to be more than the usual share of games that were Very Good — so many, in fact that I broke the category in two. Overall, it was certainly a strong season for gaming!

The Very Good

AquaSphere ThumbnailAquaSphere (2014). What a peculiar name, and it’s a peculiar theme too, with its board of a big underwater base. I think those two elements and the garish art put me off AquaSphere for a while, despite my love for Stefan Feld’s games. But, it turns out the theme is appropriate, because you’re programming robots. I actually ended up being  pleasantly remindedof Nautilus (2003) — a game that I wanted to be much better than it actually was because of its fun underwater theme.

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A Deckbuilding Look at Cthulhu Realms

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Cthulhu Realms BoxThe brand-new Darwin Kastle deckbuilding game Cthulhu Realms is a new iteration of his Star Realms system, which means that it’s another classic deckbuilder with a focus on interpersonal combat. Despite its origin as an iteration of an existing design, it still offers new innovation to the field.

With its Lovecraftian basis, it’s also a great game for the Halloween season!

The Game

The gameplay of Cthulhu Realms (2015) follows closely on the design of its predecessor, Star Realms (2014). This means that the deckbuilding play is pretty basic: you play cards that give you money (conjuration points), then you use that money to buy cards from a row of randomly selected cards. The cards then go into your discard pile, for use on future turns. This also means that the other play focuses player conflict: you play cards that do damage to your opponents, with the ultimate goal of killing everyone else off (well, driving them insane; it is a Cthulhu game, after all).

However, the cards of Cthulhu Realms are also heavily interdependent. Many have powers that only activate when you play a card of a certain color or a card of a certain type. Others only activate when you force a discard of a card or trash (abjure) a card. The result is both increased tactical play and increased emphasis on the deckbuilding. Continue reading →