Day 13 - Class Overview

I'm really bummed that this class is over. I got to play a lot of new games that I really enjoyed and I met some incredibly fun and good spirited fellow players. I feel like now I pay much more attention to the mechanics of the games that I enjoy and maybe understand why I dislike others. I also enjoyed hearing about game design from people in the business who also really love games. I don't have many friends that are willing to sit and learn a new game, let alone one as complicated as something like 7 Wonders so it was nice to geek out about this kind of stuff people that are just as passionate about it. I also learned about a lot of new games that I had never even heard of before but that I would like to play again. We also got to playtest the games that we made with our fellow classmates. Everyone that played my game gave me very positive feedback so I think I'll try to improve it even more and make a more substantial board so I can share it with friends and family. Hopefully I'll get to try some other people's games in the future if we ever have a class game night.

The most valuable thing I took away from this class though was a better understanding of how the way you interact with other players influences the experience of the overall game for everyone involved. Almost all of the designers we talked to said that it's a more positive experience for everyone when you either work together in a co-op game or if you devote your resources to helping the players lagging behind rather than trying to sabotage the one that's winning for competitive games. I think that's an important lesson to keep in mind, especially if you have a tendency to get a little over competitive like me. I really hope this class continues in future years.

Day 12 - Fleet Designer Interview and Werewolf

The interview we had with one of the designers of Fleet was pretty interesting. He gave some of the same insights that we got from our previous interview earlier on the class, such as how there's not a lot of money in game design. It's really something people do because they love games, not because they think they'll make millions. But he did explain that sometimes people hit it big, not because they come up with a particularly good game but because they create the next big game mechanic. Or it happens because someone creates a game that uses an already existing mechanic in a novel way. Then we played a few rounds of Werewolf, which is just another version of Mafia but with a lot more roles than the Sheriff and Nurse. I found that it was incredibly easy to sway people to kill of certain people. It's very much a game where people bandwagon on the just a suggestion but I think part of that its that it's almost all chance so there's no best way to decide who to accuse of being the werewolf. It's definitely a fun game though, even if it takes a long time for large groups. It also is a good game for groups where not everyone knows each other.

Day 11 - Relic Runners

Relic Runners was different from anything I'd played before. I thought its mechanics were more complicated than they needed to be. The whole game centered on building roads to move from space to space more quickly so you could uncover tiles and reveal relics. But the only way to claim a relic was if two of the same kind had been revealed and then you had to move from one relic to the other in exactly one turn to claim it. And on top of all of the that, the amount of points you received for claiming the relic was equal to how many roads you took to bridge between them. I found it frustrating in that there were too many things to keep track of that really didn't mesh well for overall strategy. You want to uncover tiles but you need to move to spaces that let you get more roads, of which there are very limited amounts. Plus you wanted to keep stacking in your supply crate skill trees. It just felt like the mechanics didn't really fit the theme of the game. When we finished we couldn't even figure out what the best strategy for the game was.

Day 10 - Mystery of the Abbey and Amazonas

The first wave of the day I played Mystery of the Abbey which is kind of a cross between Clue and Guess Who? except that it's in an Abbey for...some reason. Everyone is a monk trying to figure out which monk from the Abbey committed a murder. The strategy for this game is pretty simple, you ask other players as many questions as possible to try and narrow down who the killer is and pay attention to the information being exchanged by other players. Overall I enjoyed playing it, even with all its strange mechanics like having to go the mass every four turns. It was also interesting how you could earn points by making correct "revelations" about the murder (such as "the murderer has a beard" or "the murderer is a novice monk") to the point that it was possible to win the game by making correct statements even if you couldn't actually predict the exact person who was the murderer. I think the only thing I didn't like was more of a social aspect in that one of our players kept falling asleep during the rules explanation so they constantly kept getting confused during the game while taking a while to take their turn which was a little frustrating for everyone. I think that just goes to show that even if it's a well designed game, who you play it with can make a huge difference in your experience playing it.

For the second wave I played Amazonas which is a pretty simple game to learn. You have to build connecting research stations in the Amazon jungle in a fashion very similar to Ticket to Ride. But for each station you built you also collected a piece of the wildlife found at that station. Part of how you earned points aside from building along the correct route was to collect at least three or more of a type of wildlife and/or collect one specimen of each available type of wildlife. Part of the strategy of this game, which I didn't realize until late game, is that you should build as many stations with different wildlife as you can early in the game because the first station built in an area only cost two gold but each additional station built there increases in price. This will also result in more wildlife for wildlife points as well as bonuses for some of the income cards, allowing you to later buy the stations you need to complete your route. I don't think I disliked the game but I probably wouldn't play it again. It had almost no interaction with other players so it kind of feels like you're all sitting there and happen to be playing the same game while playing your own individual game. It was also hard to sabotage or block other players because each location had tons our connecting paths to other stations.

Day 9 - Fluxx

Today I taught Fluxx, which was a bit harder to teach than other games because the only real rules that you start with are that every player draws one card and plays one card on their turn. As the game progresses players add new rules cards and goals for winning the game. It's also tough because almost every card in the game has its own unique instructions so it's impossible to prepare players for every card they'll encounter. You basically have to trust that players will read all the instructions on all the cards they pick up because you can't micromanage everyone else's hands, especially when you're playing and trying to manage your own cards. There were a few times that rules were misunderstood or ignored, like when we finished a game and realized that the radioactive potato card was supposed to be passed counter-clockwise every time the goal was changed. But even despite that everyone had a very good time and game ran very smoothly.

Some people that were playing had a little initial trouble adjusting to the fluidity of Fluxx. They were used to other hand management/set collection games where you want to hoard cards. But in Fluxx you can lose your cards in an instant because all new rule cards take effect immediately. It can go from every turn you play 2 cards to every turn you must play all the cards in your hand. Or someone might play an action that requires everyone to swap hands with other players or even have everyone discard all of their current cards. Because the parameters of the game are constantly changing, the players constantly have to change their strategy as well. It really comes down to what order should you play your cards to either help yourself win or prevent other players from winning. 

Day 8 - Co-op Games Day

Today I got to play Betrayal at House on the Hill in which all the players are working together to discover a haunted house and uncover the betrayer among you. Once the betrayer is revealed so is the "haunt" and the players are given two separate instruction books, one for the team and one for the betrayer. It involves some dice rolling, mainly as checks for mental and physical stats. The really cool thing about this game is that the board is built as you uncover new tiles which are shuffled so you'll never play with the same board twice. There's also a ton of scenarios because there are many different ways to bring about the "haunt" and it can be any scenario from the house slowly sinking into Hell to a giant blob monster expanding through the house. Again, another feature that gives the game a lot of replay value in that having the same game twice is very hard. In my game we had to face an evil blob monster that expanded to each adjacent room every turn. It was extremely difficult and we lost, but it was a very close game.

In order to do well in this game you have to be very vocal with your team to create a good strategy, especially since each character has different strengths in certain stats. To defeat our monster we needed to pass a lot of knowledge checks, so we assigned the people with high knowledge stats on containing the monster while the player with high might concentrated on fighting the actual betrayer and the rest of the players continued to explore the house looking for items that might help the group. If even one person doesn't act as a team player it can cause everyone to lose to the betrayer. The only thing I didn't like was the aesthetics of the game. A lot of the tiles looked the same and the player tokens looked like something off an model train set. Other than that though I really enjoyed the game even though it took a long time to play.

Day 7 - Cuarenta Tournament and Gaming Panel

I didn't get to do much during the Cuarenta tournament. I only really played 3 official games and spent a lot of time waiting. My team also realized that we had been playing it completely wrong yesterday. There isn't a lot that I can add about the mechanics or strategy that I haven't already discussed in my previous post. However after my last game I got to play some Pandemic with the rest of my table. It was much easier this time and we beat all four diseases very quickly. So either because half of us had played before we were better able to strategize with each other or we set up the game/played it incorrectly. Either way, I still had a ton of fun and am going to try and purchase it soon.

We then listened to a panel from a Calvin alumni who has had experience designing game pieces and has been to many gaming conventions while owning over 400 games himself. He explained how over the last decade or so there has been an increase in the tier of games that are more complicated and that hold players responsible for their choices. These games are usually aimed at older children and adults. He then went through some of his favorite games, which ranged from typical eurogames to even kids games. I definitely saw a few I'd like to try. I also want to use some of the online gaming sites he mentioned since while I like playing eurogames, my friends have very little patience for learning things that have more than 4 rules.