Game Recommendations
Lots of people have recommended lots of games to the comments on my blog. I've tried out a bunch of them and I thought i would share my impressions:
iPhone
Drop7 has become my go-to app whenever I have a few minutes of downtime. It's an insidious combination of Tetris and Sudoku with a little bit of Minesweeper thrown in. The idea is to drop discs onto the board such that you blow up other discs and keep the screen clean. meanwhile new tiles march up from the bottom to make your life difficult. The luck of the draw can make some positions a little frustrating, but then again if it wasn't for the randomness the game wouldn't be nearly as fun. Yesterday it also hooked Del, and I lost the use of my phone for most of the afternoon. Anyway, I highly recommend it. Very skill-testing and very much a thinking game. There's a Lite version that will show you the basic gameplay, but if you like it I do think you'll want to pony up the couple of bucks for the full version as you get better formats plus really good high score tracking.
Reiner Knizia's Poison and Reiner Knizia's Knights of Charlemagne. Reiner Knizia is one of the most famous and prolific German board game designers. Of his games, I have personally enjoyed Ra, Medici, Amun Re, Tigris and Euphrates, and Lost Cities plus I see that he finally won the prestigious Spiel des Jahre last year for Keltis (which I have not played). Anyway, I love the idea of his games coming to iPhone, though I'm not sure I'm specifically in love with these two games.
Knights of Charlemagne is a well-executed port of a fairly light 1995 game where you play out cards and try to have the most points on enough tiles to win the game. It's reminiscent to me of Lost Cities and even more so of Pecking Order (a Richard Garfield design) where you and your opponent have the same basic resources and are just trying to use them more efficiently. I find these games a little too calculational for my tastes (I enjoy strategy more than tactics), but even if I'm not going to keep playing it for hours and hours I have no regrets about spending a couple of bucks on a game app that I'll play 10-20 times and then put away. The app includes an AI that you play against in a 2-player game and also a hot-seat mode, which I doubt gets much use since if you and your friend were together then why would you choose to play an iPhone game? The tabletop version is alleged on Board Game Geek to be best with 3-players, but I bet that would be pretty hard to program a good interface for.
Poison is another port of a fairly light, fairly math-y tabletop game. This time you're trying not to capture points but if your card sends the cauldron over 13 then you have to take all the cards in the cauldron. The app is well done and I think I like it better than Knights of Charlemagne. If I hadn't found Drop7, I would probably still be playing this regularly as I don't feel like I understand the strategies very well yet and the AI is still beating me consistently.
Flight Control seems very good for someone other than me. The idea is that you're an air traffic controller and you have to draw flight paths for incoming aircraft such that they all land without crashing into each other. It's fun and I can see how it would hook people, but for me I quickly grow tired of realizing that my fingers aren't as fast or as accurate as my brain wants them to be.
Funny ... I was going to try out a few more recommendations as I wrote this, but Del has once again appropriated my phone to play Drop7.
My queue has Totomi and iScopa at the top, for whatever that's worth. Meanwhile, here's a useful link with some other iPhone game recommendations, most of which i haven't gotten around to yet.
Finally, a plug: My friends Alan Comer and Nate Heiss put a breakout variant together called Fireball, Block Destroyer that just arrived at the app store. It's worth checking out if you get anything resembling enjoyment from breakout games. Alan just accepted a job at Mind Control Games so I suspect his days of messing around with iPhone app's are numbered, but I know they had fun while it lasted.
Board Games
Multiple people have recommend Le Havre, which is the next game done by the designer of Agricola (Uwe Rosenberg). I haven't tracked down a copy yet, but I think I'll try to do that this afternoon so I can take it to Wizards for Tuesday night board games. Most of my board gaming this past month has been Through The Ages, which I continue to enjoy. I now think it plays best with 3 players, by the way. 4 has some additionally interesting dynamics, but I don't think they're worth extending the game length from 4.5 hours to 6.
XBox 360
I haven't played much XBox at all, lately. I suspect that the next game I dive into will be Duels of the Planeswalkers, aka Magic for XBLA. It cleared the Microsoft certification process last week so it shouldn't be too much longer now. I have seen enough of it to know that it's well polished, though I admit I haven't played enough to know how challenging it will be for long-time Magic players.
PC/Web games
Most of my gaming on this platform has been done on Magic Online. I've got 16 QP's and counting, so I'm qualified for the monthly championship and if i rack up 9 more points then I get a first round bye. If anybody has any Alara block constructed tech that they want to share the week before Pro Tour Honolulu, feel free to drop me a line.
I did also try Within a Deep Forest, a free game by Nifflas. It's a platformer with a really good physics engine where you play a bouncing ball. Well above average for a free web game, but at the end of the day too much of a dexterity game to hold my attention for long. If you like platformers with some additional thinking required, though, it's well worth checking out.
Has anybody tried out PopCap's new Plants Versus Zombies game yet? Peggle was awesome and despite the casual-looking skin I feel no shame in having played the hell out of it. It was quite deep and superbly well executed (the Ode to Joy as the Extreme Fever theme music in particular really shows you what you can do with sound to enhance gameplay). Having enjoyed Peggle as a sort of thinking game in disguise, I'm very curious to see PopCap's take on the tower defense genre. They seem to have an almost Blizzard-like willingness to make sure they get the gameplay right. Anyway, would love to hear from folks who've played it.
That's the rundown for me. What else is out there that we thinking gamers should be playing, if only we knew about it?
iPhone
Drop7 has become my go-to app whenever I have a few minutes of downtime. It's an insidious combination of Tetris and Sudoku with a little bit of Minesweeper thrown in. The idea is to drop discs onto the board such that you blow up other discs and keep the screen clean. meanwhile new tiles march up from the bottom to make your life difficult. The luck of the draw can make some positions a little frustrating, but then again if it wasn't for the randomness the game wouldn't be nearly as fun. Yesterday it also hooked Del, and I lost the use of my phone for most of the afternoon. Anyway, I highly recommend it. Very skill-testing and very much a thinking game. There's a Lite version that will show you the basic gameplay, but if you like it I do think you'll want to pony up the couple of bucks for the full version as you get better formats plus really good high score tracking.
Reiner Knizia's Poison and Reiner Knizia's Knights of Charlemagne. Reiner Knizia is one of the most famous and prolific German board game designers. Of his games, I have personally enjoyed Ra, Medici, Amun Re, Tigris and Euphrates, and Lost Cities plus I see that he finally won the prestigious Spiel des Jahre last year for Keltis (which I have not played). Anyway, I love the idea of his games coming to iPhone, though I'm not sure I'm specifically in love with these two games.
Knights of Charlemagne is a well-executed port of a fairly light 1995 game where you play out cards and try to have the most points on enough tiles to win the game. It's reminiscent to me of Lost Cities and even more so of Pecking Order (a Richard Garfield design) where you and your opponent have the same basic resources and are just trying to use them more efficiently. I find these games a little too calculational for my tastes (I enjoy strategy more than tactics), but even if I'm not going to keep playing it for hours and hours I have no regrets about spending a couple of bucks on a game app that I'll play 10-20 times and then put away. The app includes an AI that you play against in a 2-player game and also a hot-seat mode, which I doubt gets much use since if you and your friend were together then why would you choose to play an iPhone game? The tabletop version is alleged on Board Game Geek to be best with 3-players, but I bet that would be pretty hard to program a good interface for.
Poison is another port of a fairly light, fairly math-y tabletop game. This time you're trying not to capture points but if your card sends the cauldron over 13 then you have to take all the cards in the cauldron. The app is well done and I think I like it better than Knights of Charlemagne. If I hadn't found Drop7, I would probably still be playing this regularly as I don't feel like I understand the strategies very well yet and the AI is still beating me consistently.
Flight Control seems very good for someone other than me. The idea is that you're an air traffic controller and you have to draw flight paths for incoming aircraft such that they all land without crashing into each other. It's fun and I can see how it would hook people, but for me I quickly grow tired of realizing that my fingers aren't as fast or as accurate as my brain wants them to be.
Funny ... I was going to try out a few more recommendations as I wrote this, but Del has once again appropriated my phone to play Drop7.
My queue has Totomi and iScopa at the top, for whatever that's worth. Meanwhile, here's a useful link with some other iPhone game recommendations, most of which i haven't gotten around to yet.Finally, a plug: My friends Alan Comer and Nate Heiss put a breakout variant together called Fireball, Block Destroyer that just arrived at the app store. It's worth checking out if you get anything resembling enjoyment from breakout games. Alan just accepted a job at Mind Control Games so I suspect his days of messing around with iPhone app's are numbered, but I know they had fun while it lasted.
Board Games
Multiple people have recommend Le Havre, which is the next game done by the designer of Agricola (Uwe Rosenberg). I haven't tracked down a copy yet, but I think I'll try to do that this afternoon so I can take it to Wizards for Tuesday night board games. Most of my board gaming this past month has been Through The Ages, which I continue to enjoy. I now think it plays best with 3 players, by the way. 4 has some additionally interesting dynamics, but I don't think they're worth extending the game length from 4.5 hours to 6.
XBox 360
I haven't played much XBox at all, lately. I suspect that the next game I dive into will be Duels of the Planeswalkers, aka Magic for XBLA. It cleared the Microsoft certification process last week so it shouldn't be too much longer now. I have seen enough of it to know that it's well polished, though I admit I haven't played enough to know how challenging it will be for long-time Magic players.
PC/Web games
Most of my gaming on this platform has been done on Magic Online. I've got 16 QP's and counting, so I'm qualified for the monthly championship and if i rack up 9 more points then I get a first round bye. If anybody has any Alara block constructed tech that they want to share the week before Pro Tour Honolulu, feel free to drop me a line.
I did also try Within a Deep Forest, a free game by Nifflas. It's a platformer with a really good physics engine where you play a bouncing ball. Well above average for a free web game, but at the end of the day too much of a dexterity game to hold my attention for long. If you like platformers with some additional thinking required, though, it's well worth checking out.
Has anybody tried out PopCap's new Plants Versus Zombies game yet? Peggle was awesome and despite the casual-looking skin I feel no shame in having played the hell out of it. It was quite deep and superbly well executed (the Ode to Joy as the Extreme Fever theme music in particular really shows you what you can do with sound to enhance gameplay). Having enjoyed Peggle as a sort of thinking game in disguise, I'm very curious to see PopCap's take on the tower defense genre. They seem to have an almost Blizzard-like willingness to make sure they get the gameplay right. Anyway, would love to hear from folks who've played it.
That's the rundown for me. What else is out there that we thinking gamers should be playing, if only we knew about it?
I don't know if it's really tech, as such, but the Alara block testing I've done so far has made me aware of the huge value of Martial Coup. I would have to say, if you're not playing Martial Coup (Why not? White is pretty decent in Block...), you should have some way to get around it, i.e., Jund Charm, Infest, Volcanic Fallout. That's been one of the more important factors in test games for me, as well as being able to kill planeswalkers.
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This time you're trying not to capture points but if your card sends the cauldron over 13 then you have to take all the cards in the cauldron.
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My Top 5 board games are in no particular order:
Power Grid
Die Macher
Dominion
Dreamblade
Acquire
Dominion is probably the odd one out in that it isn't as deep as the others.
Die Macher would probably be my all time favourite if it wasn't so long and involved, but if I could find the right group I'd play it every week.
Power Grid comes close and is a lot quicker and easier to pick up.
Acquire is a timeless classic, although sometimes the random tile drawing can cripple a player.
Dreamblade had so much depth it was a shame it was a collectible game.
Dominion is deeper than most 15-20 minute games and I am looking forward to the expansion making it more varied.
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A few more excellent Knizia games: Samurai, Modern Art and Colossal Arena.
And thanks for blogging. I've been enjoying the read.
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I used to be a Knizia junkie but I seem to have moved over to a Martin Wallace junkie. Brass, After the Flood and Age of Steam are all very very good games. I had forgotten about them when I wrote the last comment.
If I can get a few more games of Brass I'd probably rate it as good as Die Macher or Power Grid. Age of Steam can punish the inexperienced, I'm waiting to see what the reworking Wallace has done with Steam due out soon. After the Flood is a 3 player only game and provides a lot of tension, lots of options, definitely need to play it more often.
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I've been a fan of the board game version of Age of Empires III. It seems to have some german board game elements without being a thorough german board game.
I'm thinking about picking up Through the Ages as per your recommendation, seems to be hard to find though.
Also, you leaving wizards, does that mean you won't be doing the PT webcasts with BDM anymore?
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I got my copy of TTA through Amazon. They connected me with some random store that had it in stock. It does indeed seem surprisingly hard to find. I'm still enjoying it, though. Played another game yesterday and might be playing yet again on Saturday.
As far as Pro Tour webcasts go, I'm taking them one at a time. I still enjoy doing them and Wizards is willing to bring me out as a contractor (which is what they do with BDM anyway). I will be in Hawaii in a couple of weeks and I'll continue to go unless I wind up at some new job that makes it impossible.
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I have been playing a lot of Zombies vs Plants and really like it. Its not a hard core game so the ramp up to difficult play is pretty slow. Because of this I wish there was a speed up the zombies in the middle of a map that a lot of Tower Defense games have. I love being able to select different plants for different fights. There is a lot of game play with a fair bit of replayability. The flavor is fantastic and really funny. I highly recommend this game.
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I really enjoy LeHavre, but some people don't like the length of the game which topps Agricola. In my eyes it is still better than Agricola, because it involves more tactic than strategy.
Regarding Keltis,that's Lost Cities as a familiy version for four players. It's fun and nice, but you need only play it if you like Lost Citites with more than one opponent or with a bunch of non-players.
My favorites this year are:
- LeHavre
- Dominion
- Pandemic
Recent games that failed in our group:
- Diamonds Club. Having heard about the closenes to Goa (both from Rüdiger Dorn), we tried it, ut it had no shortages. Effetifly you could do everything you want to do and that was boring. Still the mechanic to get goods in the first half of each round is great and should be reusued for a good game.
- Valdora. Michael Schacht can make a lot of good games (e.g. Zooloretto), but this one had almost no interaction and no highs. After playing it we though that we had no clue what the rest was doing and there was no climax we were working to. It played (from the feeling not the mechanics) a lot like Mississippi Queen.
And if you have not tried them here are some classics we play a lot: Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Line 1, Goa, Taluva, Attika, Ricochet Robots, Vinic (Rereleased as Small Worlds), Torres, Tikal, China Town, Lionheart (the old version), and some more where the list might get to long.
In case you are unsure take a look at the site of Hans im Glück (http://www.hans-im-glueck.de/37.0.html) most of their games are released by Rio Grande in the US, but what they bring out is 95% great.
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Hi Randy,
I've been a fan of your Magic career & play decisions. Here are some recommendations on German Board Games that you might enjoy as thinking exercises:
1. Saint Petersburg. The game lasts for 4-6 turns, where you or the other players can try to speed up or slow down the game, to your own advantage. It's all about Rochester Draft, and you must think all your picks from your very first one. And your money, even 1 Rubel, really counts. Try it with fellow thinkers, and you won't be dissapointed. I've played it over 100+ times and the metagame can shift throughout the game, and just like Rochester, your early picks can drive other people to push different strategies. You really have to try it, if you haven't.
2. Alhambra. This game is surprisingly making me think on a lot of stuffs at the same time. Most people considers it as a light game, but a real thinker should know better when to exploit game system into maximizing all aspects within the game. If you like any card advantage tricks in Magic, you'd usually try to perform a 2-to-1 or even 3-to-1 on every turn/move you decide to play. I'm a long time Draw-Go player, and in this game it's better for you to make one big move with the correct calculation rather than to make many smaller moves which will deplete your resources (cards in hand and play options) for the subsequent turns. You should try it, maybe after you try Saint Petersburg. I haven't played it as extensively as Saint Petersburg, but I believe there are more ways in which we can expand the game than what my gaming group and I have done with Saint Petersburg.
Anyway, it's nice to see your blog. I've come across it while reading the M10 rules changes and I will be one of your regular readers from now on. Wish you success on your project with Richard Garfield.
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I agree that St. Petersburg is awesome ... it's been in heavy rotation on board game night at Wizards for years. I haven't played Al Hambra, though. I'll have to try it some time.
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I too agree with you.......the points said by him is absolutely right...
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Hi Randy.
Just wanted to ask if you have tried Shogi? There are a few apps for the iphone with competent AI. The one I'm using is "K Shogi". Nice blog btw
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there's a new Knizia game that came out this week called robot master. hadn't heard of it til now cuz the boardgame came out in france. I like it.
drop7 is awesome too
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I did also try Within a Deep Forest, a free game by Nifflas. It's a platformer with a really good physics engine where you play a bouncing ball. Well above average for a free web game, but at the end of the day too much of a dexterity game to hold my attention for long. If you like platformers with some additional thinking required, though, it's well worth checking out.
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even i am thinking out trying this out but i am not getting a calm place to do it,can anyone suggest me a good place????
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I am very fond of board games like chess, backgammon and card games. As its good fun to be with family and play such interesting games.
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