Flying the Competitive Skies (a review of Airlines: Europe)

The golden age of commercial flying. Ten companies vie for control of the European airways, claiming licenses to fly between the metropolises of the continent. And behind it all is the ubiquitous Air Abacus, a company that flies everywhere and rewards its investors handsomely.

You? It doesn't matter much to you who comes out on top, as long as you have piles of shares in your portfolio.

Enter the world of Airlines: Europe, the tense game of stock manipulation and route building in the skies.

Guide to Gaming: When is it time to cull my collection?

We are living in the golden age of board gaming. More and more games are being released. More and more games are being purchased.

More and more games are sitting on players' shelves, left unplayed.

When is it time to cull your collection?

Circus Spectaculus (a review of Spectaculum)

There once was a time when traveling circuses roamed the earth, supported by the patronage of wealthy benefactors. Sometimes the shows received good marks; sometimes performers were booed off the stage in the middle of their act. But one thing was certain: life was always interesting. And there were ducats to be made for enterprising show managers.

Spectaculum seeks to transport players to this world of entertainers and circuses through a game of stock manipulation. Is it worth the price of admission? Find out below!

Destiny for Dynasty (a review of Qin)

Conquering the countryside. Consolidating power. Building your empire. Tile-laying.

Do you have what it takes to build your dynasty? Find out below!

FDQ: Do You Add Bling to Your Games?

*Our weekly FDQ is your chance to share your stories or thoughts on various boardgame topics. We love to hear your comments!  And, if you have a question or an idea for an FDQ let us know on Twitter, in a comment below, or just e-mail us!*

When scrolling through the pictures on Board Game Geek, it doesn't take long to find gamers taking matters into their own hands. Custom Crokinole boards. More evocative minis. Carved, knitted, painted: whatever a person's other hobby, it is combined into the hobby of gaming to create something of beauty. So that's today's question: do you add custom bling to your games? Answer in the comments!  Feel free to share pictures.

@FarmerLenny holds forth:
I'm not very good with my hands, so often custom bling is beyond me. However, I do like to make my games special where I can. I sometimes follow my sister's lead in Canasta Caliente, allowing the winner of the previous round to wear the coveted chili pepper necklace. I had great plans to pimp my copy of the 1962 version of Acquire...until I found the 1999 one at a reasonable price. How do you improve upon those skyscrapers?

It's not exactly a case of adding bling, but I did create a new storage solution for Dominion to make all of my expansions fit in one box (just like everyone else). And if a game is complex, I'll usually make (or find) an aid so players know what options are available to them. (Though I eschew aids for something like 7 Wonders because the aid can easily become a crutch; the iconography is easy enough to master after one game.)

I do have two bling dreams for my games: a custom draw bag for Ra and a new carved king for El Grande. If these projects ever come to fruition, you can be sure you'll see them here.

@Futurewolfie mutters:
When most of the games you buy are from Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight, everything is pretty blinged out already.  Most of the "bling" I've considered adding is in the way of storage solutions - trying to find good plastic storage for SmallWorld tokens, or card boxes to keep Twilight Imperium organized (neither of which has been successful or completed in any fashion...).

However, I do have lots of minis, and the best way to bling out minis is to paint them.  I'm no minis painter - I have neither the patience, nor the dexterity.  Fortunately, a good friend and fellow gamer has invested some time into minis painting.  I hope to get my Battlestar Galactica minis painted next week, and eventually my Star Trek: Fleet Captains minis detailed.  Unfortunately none of this has been done yet, so I have no pictures to share.

FDQ: How Long Do Your Games Stay on the Shelf?

*Our weekly FDQ is your chance to share your stories or thoughts on various boardgame topics. We love to hear your comments!  And, if you have a question or an idea for an FDQ let us know on Twitter, in a comment below, or just e-mail us!*

Gaming can be a tough hobby.  There are so many enjoyable games to play, but it can be challenging to get a group together to play them even on a once-a-week basis. That means many games will go unplayed for long periods of time.

Many geeks have a tendency to be collectors (how many stories have we seen about people with 1,000+ game collections?), but at some point we realize that we're just not going to get to play every game on our shelf. That leaves two options: keep the game for the rare times that we will play it, or trade it off in hopes to get something we will play all the time (or at least experience a new game). (Technically you also have the options of donating it or trying to sell it for useful cash monies).

So which do you do? Do you constantly rotate your collection to play a variety of games, or are you likely to let a game sit on your shelf so you have it when the time comes around?

@Futurewolfie saaaaays:
Honestly, I have more of a tendency to keep games around.  Even if a game isn't going to hit the table every other week, if I like it a lot, I want to have it for the times when I do play. And some games, like, say, Eruption, are not going to be played with my regular group of gaming friends, but it's a good game to play with non-gamers, so it seems worth keeping. You just never know when an old gem is going to come out and be a blast to play.


Plus, if you spread games out more, games that might become dull or repetitive hold on to their luster longer.  You don't feel like you're having the same, repeated experience if you only play it every few months. Kill Doctor Lucky may not have much variation on strategy, and the jokes stay the same, but it's hilarious every time I play because I don't play it every day.

Really, the only reason I will trade a game is if it's not that enjoyable, or if it is too similar to other games I like better.  


@FarmerLenny declares:
I'm a trader. If something is sitting too long, it's gone. Though I should qualify.

There are two kinds of sitting: the sitting because an opportunity has not arisen and the sitting because the desire has not arisen. I'm fine with a game sitting because of opportunity. My 1999 Avalon Hill copy of Acquire—the jewel of my collection—is a game that sits because of opportunity. A math-heavy game like Acquire takes a certain group to achieve, and when that group does not come together, it's okay when it sits.

But then there's the other kind of sitting: sitting because desire has cooled. In many cases, it's not even my desire that has cooled. But as games are such a social activity, if I play a game with enough groups that never want to see a game again, I'd rather send it on its way and get something that will get played.

Besides, trading, bartering, wheeling-dealing: these are things I like in board games. Why wouldn't I like them in the real game of life?

FDQ: Have You Ever Targeted a Whiny Player?

We've all played with them. You might even be one of them sometimes. The players who whine and complain when things don't go their way, who act unreasonably vengeful against someone who offends them in the slightest (and such revenge being often without any real benefit to their own position). They get angry, they get snotty, they trash talk, and they often make the game a lot less fun for everyone else.

You no doubt try to keep your patience, try to help calm them down, and try to keep the game together for everyone else to keep having fun. But you know that temptation is there... so the question is, have you ever targeted a player like this, simply to knock them down a few pegs or blow off some steam? I'm talking about sidestepping your own strategy just to bust some knuckles. Well, have ya? Answer in the comments!

@Futurewolfie's take:
As it is one of my goals to introduce more people into the world of board gaming and show them that games are fun, this type of player is one of my biggest pet peeves.  I'm willing to give up strategies, play light, or point out my own weaknesses to help newbies understand a game and have fun playing it. When a game starts breaking down because someone has a bad attitude, not only is that detrimental to the game of the moment, but it could send other people running.


Still, I've found that fighting fire with fire doesn't usually do any good.  Antagonizing a player like that can turn into a one-on-one firefight that excludes the other players. So usually I try to talk the other player down, point out how they can get back in the game (although that's usually with an inexperienced player; I wouldn't want to offend someone who knew what to do but was just frustrated). Often these players are just frustrated with a run of bad luck and can be brought back into the game. And sometimes there's nothing you can do during the game except try to balance it out for the other players and keep it fun for them. Often a little chat after the game can result in better play sessions down the road, if the person can understand that they're ruining everyone else's fun.

I do find the temptation to be too strong occassionally. I rarely go out of my way and break down my strategy to attack that player, but if it falls within a reasonable realm of possibility, I will jump on their weakness to get a little satisfaction.

And sometimes, there's just nothing you can do except not invite that person anymore.

@FarmerLenny's take:

I'm an enabler; it's true. Usually if there's a whiner in the bunch, I let up and try to make the game better for them. I am an appeaser.

The game where I don't do this, however, is Acquire. There's not really a way to help someone out of poor buying choices early in the game. I try to help newbies decide which stocks to buy, but I can't do this too much because the whole game is buying stocks, and it's built on insider information. Strapped players can sulk in the end game, but there's really nothing to be done.

While I don't care for overly whiny players, I still try to make it fun for everyone. If a player makes a wrong move and it's not to other players' detriment, I'll let the player take it back (especially if the player is the greenest of the group). But this realization has to be immediate; I'm not willing to sacrifice several turns of play to do so.

Ultimately, whiny players are players, too, and I try to bring them into the fold...even if I am tempted to turn every ounce of ire against them. But hey, that's what @Futurewolfie is for, whether he's whining or not.

FDQ: What Is Player Interaction?

In recent twitter activity, the question came up as to what exactly player interaction is.

I've noticed that with certain games, some will praise it for subtle interaction while others will disdain it for being essentially "multiplayer solitaire." Aside from the fact that solitaire does actually have a two-player variant, how can one game be thought of so differently?

Okay don't answer that. That's not today's FDQ. Today's actual FDQ is, how do you define player interaction?

@Futurewolfie answers:
Honestly, to me player interaction comes in all different forms. It can be direct and impactful, or very very subtle. I think anytime the other players can do anything that affects the game for other players, that counts as player interaction. Regardless of how subtle it is, it forces players to keep at least some tabs on each other and react accordingly—and that's a form of interaction.

Case in point here is Dominion, which is sometimes called a "multiplayer solitaire" game. However, I disagree with this notion. Sure, you build your own deck and most of what goes into it is completely up to you. Other players have little chance of affecting your hand once your turn has started. However, attack cards aside, the central supply keeps all players connected. Sure, you could build a perfect deck and then buy up all the points if you were playing on your own. But the challenge comes from having to do it faster than the other players. Each time a player takes a province, not only does it push the game that much closer to ending, but it prevents any other player from getting that province, quickly dwindling the supply. Thusly players have to keep tabs on each other to make sure they don't wait too long. They have to react to the things other players are doing. And that's interaction.

If Dominion was, say, a turn-limited game, it would be much more solitary. Then you would simply attempt to build your deck in a specified amount of turns, regardless of what the other players were doing. I think there's a huge different there.

@FarmerLenny's answer:
I think player interaction is anything another player can do that forces you to change your plan. What typically passes for player interaction is conflict, where players are allowed to directly influence a player of their choice (an attack). I think there are other forms, too. For example, there is competition over choosing an action or role as in Agricola or Puerto Rico. There's the interaction of trying to read what your opponent will do as in Race for the Galaxy (though, admittedly, this game can be played without much interaction at all). There's the interaction of monitoring a common supply and trying to determine what your opponents are up to as in Dominion (granted, this game can be played without much interaction as well, especially if your goal is the baseline silver gambit). I don't think there's an ideal level of player interaction for any game (though there must be some; otherwise, what's the point of finding other players at all?); it's up to individual players. For me, I prefer games that avoid direct conflict and love games that find other ways for players to interact. My three favorite games—El Grande, Dominion, and Acquire—all cause interesting player interactions without direct attack. (Okay, there's some in El Grande. For some reason that game gets a pass.)

Cause for Giving Thanks

This weekend my wife and I traveled all across the state of Indiana to visit our families for Thanksgiving. We caught up with family members, ate great food, and of course, played some games. Here's a recap of the games I played and what I thought about them.

High Adventure in High Finance (a review of Acquire)

The jewel of my collection: the 1999 Avalon Hill version.

When I first came to Illinois, I moved into a house where I had three roommates. The roommates bonded over several shared experiences—the change-jar meals at Outback Steakhouse, watching Boston Legal, the near losses of the Indianapolis Colts—but none as much as the game Acquire.

I hadn't played Acquire before moving to Illinois (despite its age—it was first printed in 1962—and its many iterations), but it soon became one of my favorite board games. We played often, and while I seldom won, it is a fun game to lose, one of the marks of a good game.

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!***

Forbidden Love, or, The Box That Sits

A brief disclosure: I am a packrat, from a family of packrats. Cleaning out my grandma's house was an exercise in patience and archaeology. We sounded walls to find all the hidden compartments, each of which was filled with another item "for a rainy day." This mind-set—born, no doubt, in the Great Depression—was passed on to her children and eventually her grandchildren. And beyond its practicality for life, it has found its way into my hobby.

Friday Question: What Was Your Gateway Game?

In the board game community, we often talk about "gateway games," those games we present to the unwitting uninitiated to draw them into our fold. "Gateway games" are those games that change the way a person views gaming. A lightbulb goes on, and the person says, "Wow, bits of cardboard can be fun!" This Friday's question offers you a chance to share your story: what was the gateway game that drew you into the hobby? A bonus question: do you still like your gateway game? Answer in the comments!

[editors note: friday question is now saturday question, because @futurewolfie has a real job and doesn't always get a chance to write his side of the post.]

@FarmerLenny answers:
It's hard for me to credit any one game. My family is a board- and card-game-playing family, and I remember my first games of Pinochle and Dutch Blitz (or maybe just Pinochle) with a certain relish. I also played several CCGs (namely Overpower, Redemption, Star Wars, and Marvel Vs.), which were certainly precursors to more complex games. But as far as the board gaming hobby is concerned, I suppose my entry point would have to be Kill Doctor Lucky or Acquire. I think Settlers of Catan predated both of these games in terms of when I played it, but my first experience of Settlers was not exactly favorable. (Admittedly, my friend was so excited to teach it to me that he didn't wait till we had the proper number of players, and we played a two-player game, which was pretty lame.) I played Kill Doctor Lucky on a visit to my sister and brother-in-law's house, and I loved it so much that I ordered my own copy when I got home. I wanted to make sure I had a copy to share with my friends. And Acquire was the game that completed the work that Kill Doctor Lucky began. Acquire, as I've mentioned elsewhere, has it all and has remained my favorite game, built on this nostalgia factor.

@Futurewolfie answers:
Whoof, this is kind of a big question for me.  I don't know if there was one specific game that drew me in.  If you read the first post of this blog, you can get a pretty good idea of my story. But it was pretty gradual - my family played bored games sometimes as a family activity growing up, but they didn't really stick much (and I didn't realize why til much later.  We played not-fun games like Clue).  Heroclix was a boardgame I played a lot in highschool, but I think I got into it a lot for the novelty of playing as superheroes.  Settlers of Catan opened up a door that lead me to the world of greater board-gaming, and while Settlers is a fine game, I wouldn't say that game really brought me into the hobby.

Really what did it for me was just finding the FLGS in my area after the local Gamers Paradise shut down.  Incidentally, finding this FLGS (called "Games Plus") made me realize how non-gaming-paradise the Gamers Paradise actually was.  Games Plus offered several shelves full of unrecognizable (at the time) games, and I distinctly remember standing next to Bryan saying, "There are so many games here.  A lot of them HAVE to be amazing - I just wish I knew which ones."  Now I'm a lot more educated, but my first game from that world was Android - a game that, despite its length and complexity, taught me that board games could be complex, strategic, have interesting themes, and not involve rolling dice all the time.


What's yours?

Friday Question of the Day: What is your favorite game, and why?

Everybody likes to talk about their favorite things, and today we satisfy that urge with a Friday Question of the day:

What is your favorite board game, and why?

Tell us about it in the comments!


@Futurewolfie answers:
My favorite board game is definitely Cosmic Encounter.  First of all, I'm a total sci-fi geek and the "space/alien" genre really speaks to me.  But beyond that, I love the variety and humor of the aliens.  There are a lot of subtle references and just plain old hilarious abilities that lead to laughter and fun.  I really enjoy how each game requires a different approach based on the alien powers in play.  And possibly most of all, I love the interactivity, the bluffing, the role-playing, and the imagination that is sparked almost automatically by playing this game. Win!

@FarmerLenny answers:
My favorite board game is probably the Sid Sackson classic Acquire. Part of this is nostalgia (my roommates all played it when I moved to Illinois; we even kept recorded stats). Part of this is Acquire is just a great game. It has high tension, high stakes, and lots and lots of money. It involves some math, but there's a good deal of player interaction and bluffing as well. It has a steep learning curve, but it's totally worth learning the game (and getting slaughtered your first time--I know from experience). G.K. Chesterton said that it's those who play badly who truly love the game itself--that describes my experiences with Acquire. And by how badly I play, I must really enjoy it!

Gaming Gestalt

This is one of my favorite games--but what an
unappealing package!

I appreciated this post by John Garcia on telling newbies about hobby board games. He says that sometimes it's hard for new players to grasp the fun of a game just hearing what it's about. "So...you settle an island? Why would you want to collect resources? Who cares if you have the longest road?" He suggests just jumping in—that many times a game is greater than its explanation or what's contained in the box.

I find this is true for the most part. If a game has an unappealing package (El Grande); an unappealing (Pandemic), boring-sounding (Agricola), or abstract (Carcassonne) theme; or an appearance of complexity (Dominion), it doesn't matter how awesome the game is, it's much harder to get uninitiated players to try it. And the bigger the box, paired with these frightening traits, the less likely a person is to be willing to play the game. Ugly art and a big box tells non-geeks that they are about to enter a stifling realm of B.O. and arcana—more components, more to keep track of, greater chance of immersion, less chance of coming up for air. Best to come up with an excuse why you need to leave and cut your losses.