Some people call me Morisi (woo-hoo!)
Mar. 29th, 2005 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rbandrewsIt's been a while since I updated this thing, and I've played a lot of neat games recently, so I'll talk about them.
Groo: I had never played this before last Saturday. I'm impressed. This is how you make a game with a cute theme that's actually good. Steve Jackson should take note. You draw cards and the goal is to play them. Some cards are buildings which have cool abilities and are used to win, some cards are soldiers that can burn down buildings, and some cards affect Groo. Groo wanders randomly around the table and lays waste to whoever's town he's currently on. What I found really clever about it was how you built cards, though. On your turn, you roll some dice to get resources to build things with. Then, after you've used all you can, you pass what's left to the next player. The upshot of this is that you're able to build all the time, and you're not just waiting until your turn and being hosed when it's not.
Struggle of Empires: This has some clever mechanics. I want to play it again before I decide, but I think it's all right. I did very poorly the first game due to not understanding the rules very well. The game is a wargame set in the 1700s across most of the world. You fight three wars, and in each war you organize into two alliances.
Morisi: I finally played this again last night. I had forgotten just how cool it was. Imagine a game of Settlers with no dice, and the goal is to build a road system. You move around the map picking up cubes from land tiles and using them to build roads. Roads connecting cities (gray tiles) generate houses in those cities. I'm going to start bringing this inconveniently round box more.
And finally...
Clippers: I haven't actually played this, but I really want to. Alan R. Moon game themed around clipper ship companies in the Pacific islands that I bought at Origins. I haven't played it because every time I try to read the rules, I become bored instantly. They are so dry and dull that I just could not manage to get through them. I can just imagine the dialog:
Eurogames: Look, Alan, we love the game but the rules are unreadable. Can you clean them up some?
Alan Moon: I can write a quick start guide.
Eurogames: That'll be perfect!
(a bit later)
Eurogames: This quick start guide is even more dull than the rulebook! Gah!
Anyway, I read a review on BGG (to see if it was even worth the boredom) and came away from the first half of it with a very clear understanding of how the game works. So it's not a complex game, just a poorly explained one. The game is played in rounds. Each round the players take turns placing clipper ship route segments to connect up islands. However, before that happens, they can optionally buy cards (for that round only) that let them place more segments. The goal is to have ports (you don't control clipper companies, you control the ports of your country on the islands they visit) on islands that are visited by many different clipper companies. It looks really clever and fun.
Groo: I had never played this before last Saturday. I'm impressed. This is how you make a game with a cute theme that's actually good. Steve Jackson should take note. You draw cards and the goal is to play them. Some cards are buildings which have cool abilities and are used to win, some cards are soldiers that can burn down buildings, and some cards affect Groo. Groo wanders randomly around the table and lays waste to whoever's town he's currently on. What I found really clever about it was how you built cards, though. On your turn, you roll some dice to get resources to build things with. Then, after you've used all you can, you pass what's left to the next player. The upshot of this is that you're able to build all the time, and you're not just waiting until your turn and being hosed when it's not.
Struggle of Empires: This has some clever mechanics. I want to play it again before I decide, but I think it's all right. I did very poorly the first game due to not understanding the rules very well. The game is a wargame set in the 1700s across most of the world. You fight three wars, and in each war you organize into two alliances.
Morisi: I finally played this again last night. I had forgotten just how cool it was. Imagine a game of Settlers with no dice, and the goal is to build a road system. You move around the map picking up cubes from land tiles and using them to build roads. Roads connecting cities (gray tiles) generate houses in those cities. I'm going to start bringing this inconveniently round box more.
And finally...
Clippers: I haven't actually played this, but I really want to. Alan R. Moon game themed around clipper ship companies in the Pacific islands that I bought at Origins. I haven't played it because every time I try to read the rules, I become bored instantly. They are so dry and dull that I just could not manage to get through them. I can just imagine the dialog:
Eurogames: Look, Alan, we love the game but the rules are unreadable. Can you clean them up some?
Alan Moon: I can write a quick start guide.
Eurogames: That'll be perfect!
(a bit later)
Eurogames: This quick start guide is even more dull than the rulebook! Gah!
Anyway, I read a review on BGG (to see if it was even worth the boredom) and came away from the first half of it with a very clear understanding of how the game works. So it's not a complex game, just a poorly explained one. The game is played in rounds. Each round the players take turns placing clipper ship route segments to connect up islands. However, before that happens, they can optionally buy cards (for that round only) that let them place more segments. The goal is to have ports (you don't control clipper companies, you control the ports of your country on the islands they visit) on islands that are visited by many different clipper companies. It looks really clever and fun.
