Every year during Essen, Fairplay Magazine announces the winner of their a la carte award, given to the best card game of the year.  This year, the winner is Castle Combo, designed by Gregory Grard and Mathieu Roussel.  The tableau-building drafting game did well in the annual awards, as it also won a Golden Geek for best light game and earned an SdJ recommendation.  Grard and Roussel also designed the game that finished in ninth place, Zenith.

The runner-up game is Faraway, which had a number of near misses in the awards, including a Kennerspiel nomination.  Despite half a dozen nominations in major awards, its only win came in France’s As d’Or competition.

The rest of the top 5 include The Gang, Fishing, and Flip 7.  Fishing continues a long record of success in the a la carte for its designer, Friedemann Friese.  Even though he’s never won, this gives The Man in Green his seventh finish in the Top 5–only Knizia has more.

Probably the year’s most popular card game is LotR: Duel for Middle Earth, but it could only manage a tenth-place finish.  The most likely reason for the low placement is that the game is a redesign of 7 Wonders Duel, which actually won the a la carte nine years ago.

Here is the complete list of the top 10 finishers, together with their designers.  Congratulations to all!

1. Castle Combo – Gregory Grard, Mathieu Roussel
2. Faraway – Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat
3. The Gang – John Cooper, Kory Heath
4. Fishing – Friedemann Friese
5. Flip 7 – Eric Olsen
6. Agent Avenue – Christian Kudahl, Laura Kudahl
7. Duck & Cover – Oussama Khelifati
8. 3 Chapters – Joe Hout
9. Zenith – Gregory Grard, Mathieu Roussel
10. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth – Antoine Bauza, Bruno Cathala

• Designer: Jeffrey CCH 
• Illustrations: Samuel Horowitz and Hanna Kuik
• Publisher: Portal Games (2nd ed.)
• Players: 1-4 (solo mode + solo scenarios)
• Age: 14+
• Time: 45-60 minutes
• Played with the review copy provided by the publisher

[Second Edition reviewed, but changes between the editions are minimal and noted below.]

Are you used to playing a game once and judging it?  I am, especially when not reviewing it. Many games seem to reveal much of what they have on the first play, and the players sense that subsequent plays will be strategically and tactically similar. This is not to say they are bad.  They might scratch an itch that you always have. They might have asymmetry, special powers, and the vaunted replayability, but still not play out radically differently.

In contrast, our first play of Age of Galaxy left us feeling that we could not judge it immediately and that it would require several plays to assess fully.  I have now played at 2, 3, and 4 players, and it plays quite differently at each count. In addition, the games feel very different depending on which seven cards are in your hand.

Age of Galaxy is an empire-building/civilization game in space. It has exploration, expansion, abstracted exploitation, and the vague threat of extermination. It is a very gentle game with Euro-style conflict modelling, such as giving benefits to those with the most military strength.  It does have slight targeting because if your empire is overextended (more planets than starships to protect them), the player with the most strength might be able to take one over. As a 4x game, it is exceptionally gentle, and it is designed to encourage you invest in military to avoid falling behind, not to trash your plans and ruin your day.  

Luthier

• Designers:  Dave Beck, Abe Burson
• Publisher:  Paverson Games
• Developer:  Richard Woods
• Solo Designers:  David Digby, Richard Woods
• Artists:  Vincent Dutrait, Guillaume Tavernier
• Players:  1-4
• Age:  14+
• Duration:  2-4 hours
• Times Played:  2

We’re here to talk about the new game Luthier, but first, a couple of questions.  The first is, what exactly is a luthier?  If you don’t know, don’t feel bad—I didn’t either until the game came out.  Turns out it’s a person who constructs stringed instruments (particularly violins), and that’s just what we’re doing here, although the game does extend the definition to include wind, percussion, keyboard, and percussion instruments as well.  The second question is, how the hell is the word pronounced?  Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any agreement on that.  It’s a French word and apparently the French pronounce it loo-thee-AY.  I’ve seen two English pronunciations, either LOO-tee-er (since the word comes from “lute”, the stringed instrument—this seems to be the pronunciation favored by classical music buffs) or LOO-thee-er (since that’s the way the word is spelled).  I’d say just pick one and use it.

Anyway, this game with multiple possible pronunciations is one of the hot new titles.  It’s actually been available in Britain for a couple of months, but the Kickstarter copies just hit the States recently.  I got the chance to play it a couple of times last month, so I thought I’d post my first impressions, together with a summary of how it’s played.