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| Amun-Re |
| Traumfabric |
Game Night: Saturday 11-1-2003
Now that the resurgence of strategy gaming has
taken hold in world, has the industry begun to lose its way? I remember when the
stand-up comic rose to prominence in the US. There were a handful of struggling
comics, then 3 years later there were 2000 working comics in the US. Most of
them average. But the real crime was someone like "Paul Rodriguez". Remember
him? Probably not. He was one of the most famous stories in the industry (once
you got past the Robin Williams stories). He had the greatest 10 minutes in
comic history. He get the opportunity to put those 10 minutes on national TV and
suddenly he is a star. A STAR. But he has nothing else to back it up with except
a great sense of humor. Well, that's just not enough.
Ok, now that you heave read my digression, here is an analogy. New England
SUCKS. There, I said it. Game of the year? Are you kidding me? Our game industry
has gone from loving games to falling in love with game designs. Alan Moon/Aaron
Weissblum design a game that only a game designer can love. The COMPLETE lack of
fun (except the love of mechanics), a theme that is non-present, and it doesn't
hold a candle to a game like Puerto Rico. And remember, Puerto Rice did NOT win
game of the year last year!!!
Alright already! Stop yelling at me. I understand this is an unpopular opinion
that is being shouted down by you mentally as you read this. But tell me, if it
was 5 years ago, would you have even OPENED THIS BOX? Settlers, Puerto Rico,
Princes of Florence, Carcassonne, Ra, Torres, Carlos Magnus, Aladdin's dragons,
Through the Desert and MEDICI for Pete's sake. Suddenly we love a game like New
England? Why not just have Paul Rodriguez come over and do 10 minutes at your
kids birthday party?
If it wasn't for Balloon cup and Edel, Stein & Reich, this year was pretty much
a dud. Try "Bang!" too, its fun. Fun. (Yes I played "I'm The Boss" and Amun-Re.
Here is a short comment on "I'm the Boss": When you made the families more "PC",
you lost the ability to quickly associate the faces to the bidding. New players
struggled with this. An ironic twist, I know. Anyway, I digress again.)
I am not trying to say that New England is a bad game. (yes I am.) But rather,
that we can not rely on games that other designers like. Lets stop loving games
because they offer "choices" and start loving them for the same reasons we loved
Risk and Acquire. For the same reason we can pull out a copy of Take 6 in front
of people who don’t like games, and they love it. For the same reason that most
of us can remember our favorite board game growing up (mine was Careers by
parker brothers). BECAUSE THEY WERE ACCESSIBLE. Not in the sense that they were
easy to find. But rather they were easy to grasp and play for anyone. Lets
remember, "Sequence" is a popular game. I don't like it, it hurts my brain. But
it is still a very popular game. Think about that before you vote for game of
the year in 2005.
By the way, just in case you get the wrong idea. Union Pacific and Das Amulet
are two of my favorite games. Alan Moon has talent. Lasting talent. There will
be more great games from him. Unless we start being happy with games like New
England. Then we are all in trouble.
Game Night: Saturday 11-8-2003
OK, before we get to Ray's rant (do I see a pattern here?) I will tell you about our first game, Traumfabric. I borrowed this game from Mike at Fairplay games, it is out of print and the movie copyrights make it hard to find in the states.
The idea of the game is to make movies. The movie scripts are given to you, it's your job to find directors, actors, cameramen, special effects, music and even guest starts. The only problem with this game is the fact that most of the movies, actors and directors are out of date. we solved this with some post-it notes! We pulled a lot of them out of our ass, but we had a good time going it. The opening film was North by Northwest, directed by Ed Wood, staring Alec Baldwin and Julia Roberts. We speculated how the plane scene would have been, "Ed Wood" style. Alec dodging a paper airplane. i assume Tor Johnson would be in the film as a bad guy. I can't even imagine what Wood would do with the Mt. Rushmore set!
Other noteworthy films (we stopped writing them down, it was none stop humor!) Harvey directed by David Cronenberg. Attack of the Clones, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, staring Boris Karloff, music by Hole. Matrix, staring Elvis and Linda Blair. The 10 Commandments, directed by Kevin Smith, staring Frank Sinatra and Jim Carry, music by Randy Newman. I think we had a great time, the game has a solid bidding theme and it's very simple to play. Even though I had a great start, I ended up second to last!
Traumfabric Winner Don 91 - Ed 58 - Ray 55 - Ashley 35 - John P. 34
I don't agree with Ray's review of Amun Re, I have played it four times, and the first three times we had a lot more fun with the game. The first time we played, it was ok, we had no idea of what was what. The second and third times I played I liked the game very much. I don't know what made this time a bad experience. I think it may have something to do with previous playings, I think that Game of Thrones has the same problem. If you are not familiar with the game mechanics, the game seems overly hard. I don't think that Amun Re and GOT are that hard, I don't want every game to be a, Beer and Pretzels game. But hey, we all have opinions, so lets get on to Ray's!
Amun-Re. Shock Treatment anyone?
I have the opportunity to play Amun-Re again this past weekend. Here's the deal.
Isn't the idea behind playing games to RELIEVE stress? If so, then why play Amun
-Re? The game is a muddled mess of confusing victory conditions and abstract in
game mechanics that makes it far too complex for a casual game. I understand
that there is a division between casual gamers and hard-core games. Hard-core
games nearly destroyed the gaming industry at one time, but I digress. No, here
is a better analogy. Shock Treatment.
Shock Treatment is a movie brought to you by Richard O'Brien. He wrote "The
Rocky Horror Picture Show". Shock Treatment was his second film and had all the
same elements: groovy songs, engaging characters, fun participation options, and
just plain wackiness. The movie was a dismal failure. Years later, Richard was
asked why he thought the movie didn't work. His reply was "It was a muddled
mess".
Amun-Re is very similar. It has many of the things that makes a good game:
difficult choices, many variations of play and strategy, and of course, a unique
set of playing mechanics. The problem is one of overload. It was way too many
variations of play, nebulous strategy, and overabundance of scoring options, and
mechanics too numerous to list. One player got a head-ache while playing, one
player never did understand the scoring, even after we finished, and one player
won. Although none of us could explain how, including him. Try explaining this
to a new player and you sound like Pete Townsend trying to explain what's on his
computer hard drive… You just feel stupid.
Once again, I reiterate the point that games should stick to unique mechanics
with fun themes. After all, who wants to see the return of games like "Squad
Leader"?
Amun Re Winner Don 45 - Ray 39 - John P. 36 - Ed 31 - Ashley 22