News Bits: 11/25/2013

"It's the holiday season..." Or at least it's coming. And that's probably why this was a slow week. (That, or everyone was at BGG.Con.) In any case, here's this week's NEWS:

Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts coming soon [Link] The news has to be legit this time, since the designer diary was posted on Board Game Geek. Also, Tom Lehman comments that it is in transit now to the Rio Grande warehouses. Alien Artifacts takes Race for the Galaxy in a new direction, beginning a new arc for the game. It may be time to jump back in...

FDQ: Minis or Cubes

It's an age-old topic of debate. Games come with a variety of parts. Sometimes tokens are relegated to printed cardboard circles; some games resort to classic meeples and cubes to represent various elements of the game board. And then some companies, attempting to pack in as much flavor in the components themselves, fill their boxes with detailed plastic minis.

The idea of minis excites many gamers, but some just wish the parts were simpler and the games were cheaper. So, fellow gamerites, what do you think? What is your preferred style of game component?

@Futurewolfie says:
I know that @Farmerlenny will probably hate on the minis, but honestly, I love 'em. I love theme and flavor in games, and detailed plastic minis just add a whole lot to that. Starships in Twilight Imperium? Awesome!  Knights in Shadows over Camelot? Sweet! Zombies and heroes in Last Night on Earth? Dude!

I realize there are drawbacks, and I can certainly understand why someone might prefer wooden parts; the colors are more distinct and easy to check at a glance, and minis definitely add to the cost of a game. Not every game needs minis—in Carcassonne, for example, it would be pointless to have minis instead of meeples (which are sort of like wooden minis anyway; they have such personality!)  Ascending Empires, while we love starship minis, just wouldn't work—the disks are needed for flicking. Fortunately, detailed stickers fill in some of the flavor so we're not stuck with plain colorized cylinders.

But you know what? Last Night on Earth would just not be the same without the minis. The crowds of zombies help the story and enhance the flavor. Battlestar Galactica's Viper and Raider minis may not be entirely necessary, but the ship designs are visually distinct and again, it adds to that Galactica feel. Twilight Imperium just wouldn't have the same feel if you have different sizes or shapes of cubies to represent the different types of ships in your fleet.

And over time, I think the cost difference between meeples and minis will shrink. As the board game hobby overall grows, more and more games will be purchased, and games will get bigger print runs. Bigger print runs means smaller cost per game—and the costly part of detailed minis is creating the original mold. Heck, even wooden tokens are getting more detailed and unique, with animeeples, vegemeeples, fruitimeeples—all sorts of meeples coming in various shapes and sizes. Woohoo! I love this stuff!

@Farmerlenny says:
@Futurewolfie only gets it half right (which is half more than normal, by the way) when he says I will hate on minis. I don't hate on minis. Minis are kind of cool...when they aren't used as a mask for shoddy game design. That I don't like most games that include minis isn't a judgment on minis themselves but on a certain type of theme-rich gameplay that ignores the more important aspects of game design: decisions, downtime, and a preference for simplicity over convolution.

To me, cubes are serviceable, and most of the time that's enough. I opted not to upgrade my copy of Agricola, being perfectly content with discs and cubes. I don't need sheep that look like sheep. I make my living by reading: I can imagine a story overlaying drab bits if I want to. But most of the time, my games don't need the extra layer. What's the story in Ticket to Ride? I don't care. The decisions are interesting enough that I'm not thinking about it. If I want a good story, I'll read a book. I play games for different reasons. I'm so boring that I came this close to not applying the included stickers in my copy of Belfort. But then I realized that @Futurewolfie cares about such things, and since he is the person I'm most likely to play it with...

All of this being said, however, I am not immune to the draw of fancy components when they are paired with a good game. Show me a beautiful game (with beautiful mechanics to match), and I will likely be putty in your hand. I'm sure this is nine-tenths of the reason I purchased Troyes, and one-half the reason I haven't traded away Fresco. It was also what kept me on the fence about El Grande and what keeps Stone Age hitting the table again and again. I have a soft spot for beautiful games and components, whether made of wood, plastic, marble, or glass.

But I'm also plenty happy with my original Director's Cut edition of Kill Doctor Lucky, which I taped together myself.

FDQ: What Game Doesn't Love You Back?

We all have games we love and games we strongly dislike. Usually we get pretty good at our favorite games: we play them frequently, we learn the ins and outs of strategies, and our passion for the game carries us to victory.

But sometimes, sometimes we fall in love with a game that we just kinda suck at. It defies logic; you'd think getting hit over the head repeatedly would turn us off. But for some reason, these games continue to have a special grip on our hearts. It's not that we never win, we just more often than not fail to end up on top. But we sure had a blast along the way.

What game do you love that doesn't love you back? Answer in the comments!

@Futurewolfie answers:
I have a couple games that fit in this category. Kill Doctor Lucky is pretty much always a blast. It's a good laugh, it keeps me engaged the whole way through trying to figure out how to maximize my turn or get Doctor Lucky alone in a choice room for a brilliant murder attempt... but in the end, I usually fail to win.  More often than not, I draw out the last failure card from other players, only to have the next person in line strike for the victory.


Cosmic Encounter, currently my #1 favorite game, is also a game that I often lose. I'm probably victorious more often than with KDL, but I constantly find myself making terrible decisions (in restrospect), or letting someone else get great positioning, or otherwise losing the top spot.  It speaks volumes that despite my poor record, this is still my favorite game; it's just so much fun to play it doesn't matter if I win or not.

Olympos is very new to me and hasn't really been played enough to make a solid judgment, but I have yet to scrape a victory and it's still a blast every time. I love the time mechanic that makes you try and perform your actions in as few steps as possible. It's tense, it's great fun, and I still haven't nailed down a successful strategy. We haven't reviewed this one yet, but we will get it up there soon.

@FarmerLenny answers:
 Ascending Empires probably tops the list for me. For those not in the know, Ascending Empires is a dexterity space empire building game (which, incidentally, @Futurewolfie and I chose for 2011's Game of the Year). I'm not very good at flicking my ships around or with negotiating with other players, but still, more often than not, it's the game I want to play.

I'm also not terribly good at Power Grid and its various iterations, but I love economic games, and it's hard to keep me away for too long.

iSlaytheDragon's GAME OF THE YEAR

Now that 2011 has come to a close, we can safely look back at all the games we played and loved. We love to hand out kudos to those who deserve it, and the new year is our chance to point out the games that stood above the crowd, at least to us. We're only picking games that we played, and games that released in or around 2011, so if you think a different game deserves the top spot... well, go ahead and let us know in the comments. Now, without further ado...

Christmas Gift Guide 2011

Even dragons love Christmastime.

Christmas is right around the corner, and this means that gift-buying season is in full swing. Rather than giving those special someones on your list another sweater or novelty Monopoly set (Monopoly: The Tacky Christmas Tie Edition!), why not try giving them something they'll really enjoy? Look below as @Futurewolfie and I make gaming suggestions for the people on your Christmas shopping list. If you'd like more details about any of these games, we've linked to our reviews, or you can ask us questions in the comments. If we haven't covered someone on your list, post a comment, and we'll recommend something fresh. It's that simple.

(Oh, and so you know, we're not the only ones doing this. Check out other great lists on Dice Hate Me, Gamer Chris, Games and Grub, The Board Game Family, The Game Aisle, and of course, Board Game Geek. Their lists differ significantly from ours, but they have good suggestions, too.)

FDQ: What Game Do You Wish You Played More Often?

We discussed it earlier—the near tragedy of the box that sits. Variety may be the spice of life, but too much variety leads to being spread too thin. And while "the cult of the new" has its draws, it sometimes pushes old favorites to the background. So today's FDQ: Which game do you wish you played more of? And the corollary question, why don't you?

@FarmerLenny answers:
I game most frequently over lunch hours at work, so the games that I wish I got to play more are mostly games that don't fit within that time frame. Most notably, I wish I got to play El Grande more. This game takes a double hit: it's too long to be played over lunch, and it takes at least four players to make gaming circumstances optimum. This is one of my favorite games, but the box sits there most of the time. Still, it's worth keeping around for those golden moments when I get to play it. Acquire is another game I don't get to play enough of because it's long. It also has the added strike against it that it's fairly mathy. I take advantage of playing this one whenever I can.

@Futurewolife answers:
Even though I've actually played it fairly often recently, I just can't get enough of Ascending Empires right now. Shadows over Camelot has been sitting on my shelf far too much since I obtained it in trade at Gencon.  And darn you, Smallworld, for being just too long to fit in a lunch hour comfortably. I will always keep you around, though, because you are so fun, even though I get to play you so very little.

***Next week is our special  "From Russia with Love  " week, when we will review at a gallop four new titles from Right Games out of Russia. You won't want to miss it!***

"No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space." (A review of Ascending Empires)

[Editors note: The following is a Nemesis Review, featuring opinions from our in-house thematic-loving @futurewolfie and his ferocious opponent, the stodgy euro-loving @Farmerlenny. Make sure to read both opinions to get a better overall picture of the game!]

Space. Adventure. Empires. Fleets. Battle. Ascending Empires.

Relatively new from Z-man games, Ascending Empires is a strategic empire-building game combined with a dexterity mechanic. While the concept didn’t seem impressive or even appealing to me at first, it all comes together into a neat, tight package that is enjoyable, accessible, and yet maintains a level of strategic depth. 

Friday Question: Are You a Sleever?

I've heard it defended as "protecting your investment." I've heard detractors say, "It's like your mom covering the couch in plastic: it's so uninviting and doesn't feel like home." So this Friday, we're here to settle the question once and for all: Are you a sleever? To what extent? Answer in the comments below!

@FarmerLenny answers:
It's probably leftover from my days of playing CCGs—when I spent lots of money on little pieces of cardboard whose only value was determined by the company publishing it—and from my days of being the hall's unofficial activity director in my freshman dorm (when I spent my days playing video games and my nights wiping others' grease off my controllers), but I am a sleever. Not for all games, mind you. But if a game is exclusively or even primarily cards, I will probably sleeve it. I should qualify that. If a game is cheap ( < $20), I probably won't sleeve it. Bohnanza is a good example. If the game is expensive and primarily if not exclusively cards (like Dominion or 7 Wonders), I think it's worth it to sleeve the game. And seeing the wear on my sleeves (and considering the play my games see over lunch periods), I'm glad I made that decision. I think it's especially important to sleeve cards if the game is likely to have expansions, since uneven wear can become an issue. Board games that have cards but that are not primarily cards (like Ticket to Ride or even El Grande) I don't sleeve since the other bits are the bulk of the cost. Usually in these situations the manufacturer offers some kind of replacement deck for just the card portion. By the way, I am a cheapskate, so I use the penny sleeves. These are a good way to protect your investment without breaking the bank. Honestly, I prefer the tactile feel of cards without their plastic coatings, but I'd much rather protect the game.

@Futurewolfie answers: 
I'm not really a sleever, though it's more out of laziness and/or cheapness than anything else.  Dominion (and its expansions) is the only game I have sleeved... namely because it gets a lot of play, it consists entirely of cards, and there's a lot of reshuffling - after only a year, the cards are noticably wearing down, so I finally had to give in.  I also go for the 'penny' sleeves - it just doesn't make any sense to me to pay $40 to sleeve a game that i paid $30 for.  Okay maybe not every game has QUITE as many cards as Dominion, but still...

I would probably sleeve more games but it's very frustrating and annoying trying to find sleeves that fit for each game you have.  There are so many variations, and the size you need is always more expensive than the size that's 4mm shorter.  It is unfortunate that the cheap sleeves are so flimsy and also have a lot of variance in how snugly they fit.  In the end i would almost rather buy new copies of a game if the cards got too worn out, although i suppose that sleeves would be proof against the game going out of print...  Either way, it makes me greatly appreciate games that don't have cards at all (I'm looking at you guys, Smallworld and Ascending Empires, two of my favorites).

Once More Unto The Breach (another look back at Gencon)

@Farmerlenny shows his excitement 

Not to beat a dead horse, but since this was not my first run at Gencon, I figured it was worth sharing my thoughts as well.  If you read yesterdays post you already know that myself, @Farmerlenny, and our friend Blake, all attended Gencon over the weekend with many thoughts towards finding and playing new games to share with our readers here.  We hit up the floor friday and saturday, saw a lot of sights, and played a lot of games.  Here are my thoughts, and a coupla photos.

A Newbie's GenCon Wrap-Up

On Thursday night after work, @Futurewolfie and I and our friend Blake piled into the car and drove to Indianapolis for what is billed as "the best four days in gaming." This was my first time attending GenCon, and I didn't quite know what to expect. I can certainly tell you that I didn't expect to see as many costumes as I did, or steampunk outfits, or scantily clad anime lookalikes. I did, however, expect to see and play board games, and here GenCon 2011 did not disappoint.

I demoed several games, played even more with friends, and overall enjoyed the experience. Below is a list of the new games I tried and what I thought about them. (Keep in mind that these are general impressions—I only played some of them once!)