PREVIEW: Codex Enigmatum
Designer: Rami Hansenne
Availability: Upcoming Kickstarter
We don’t do “previews” for many unreleased titles here at the OG, but a few of us are suckers for puzzles, and so some folks have found our soft underbelly. Rami Hansenne the designer of the upcoming “Codex Enigmatum” offered to send us a review copy of his upcoming “eccentric puzzle book”, and over a cup of some peach ginger tea, I worked my way through it recently and here are some thoughts.
Here at the good old OG, we’ve been reviewing and previewing lots of different kinds of games recently. Some of our writers love Asian games, including titles from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Others like the more thematic games coming from the U.S. We’ve also seen reviews of a lot of trick-taking titles, minimalistic games, and social deduction designs. It’s all a product of the incredible variety and sheer number of games released these days.
Well, I like a lot of these designs, but the type of game that really gets my heart beating faster hasn’t changed much over the last 20 years. It’s the 2-hour, big box Eurogame. Nothing as heavy as an 18xx or Splotter title, mind you, but still something that gets you engaged and gives your brain a good workout. Over the past few years, I’ve been particularly fond of games created by Italian designers. The Voyages of Marco Polo, Tzolk’in, and Grand Austria Hotel have been among my favorite titles over that period of time and all have come from La Italia. So anything that has that as a lineage is sure to get my attention.
All this is an explanation of why one of my most anticipated designs of the year is Coimbra (which, I believe, is pronounced koe-EE-brra, with the “m” being silent—if there are any Portuguese speakers out there who know this is wrong, please set me straight). There are actually three things about the game that have put it on my radar. First, are the designers, who are not only part of the new wave of Italian game designers, but actually had a major role in starting it. Brasini and Gigli began as half of the design team of Acchittocca, which back in the day gave us such major titles as Leonardo da Vinci (2006) and Egizia (2009), which were among the first of the meatier games to come out of Italy. Egizia was the design quartet’s last design, but Brasini and Gigli have re-emerged lately, with Gigli being the co-designer of the excellent Grand Austria Hotel (2015) and both Gigli and Brasini serving as co-designers of Lorenzo il Magnifico, which was my favorite game from 2016. So a new gamer’s game from these two was certainly worth checking out. Continue reading
So – lots of gaming done by the Opinionated Gamers this weekend – and though it’s always tough to judge a game by your first play, plenty of opinions to be had. Sure, it’s not completely fair to a game; there may be rules mistakes, players are not fully aware of all the rules nor nuances of a game, the conditions might not be optimal, etc…
These sort of judgements would likely not be appropriate for a full review, but with many major conventions coming up in the next two weeks – we thought it would be a nice thing to aggregate some of our initial thoughts and simply present them in stream of consciousness format.
Think of this as a bunch of twitter feeds glommed together or maybe kind of like a Robert Altman movie – you’re a fly on the wall at a dinner gathering in Essen, and you’re simply getting snippets of multiple gaming conversations. Context here is somewhat intentionally left out as is the identity of the commenter. The order of comments has been somewhat randomized and anonymized given the early nature of said comments – but it’s like getting 175 tiny reviews/impressions all at once. Yeah, it’s like a firehose of information, but we think you’ll like it…
We’re likely going to start our Essen reviews in earnest following Thanksgiving; but for now, here are our opinions! This is admittedly a huge wall of text. I’ll put in a box image every 20 comments to help you navigate this – especially if you can’t take it all in at once! Just look for the picture where you stopped!
The River – I liked this. My family loved it. It plays quickly: at one point we literally played in 13 minutes! We played four times this weekend, and I’m already a bit fatigued of it, but this is probably the consensus favorite of my family, who really enjoys the streamlined nature of it.
Quantum – This is another family favorite. I enjoyed this Roll ’n Write more than many in the genre, although it can be a tedious amount of adding. Five plays this weekend.
The Boldest – maybe my favorite game from Essen 2018 so far. You secretly and simultaneously play cards to try to get in the right position to draft the cards you want from the array on the table. Sometimes you have to read your opponents right to take your turn when you want; sometimes it just pays to be lucky. A nice combination of luck, tactics and strategy here.
Trapwords: I love Taboo. I love word games. Trapwords, as a sort of reverse Taboo, is a can’t-miss for me. One friend pointed out a legitimate complaint, that in Taboo you have the added challenge of trying to clue something while your mind is filled with a list of things you know you can’t say. When those things are hidden from you, suddenly your mind is free to roam and jump to obscure synonyms that would be hard to anticipate. In my play with that friend, there was only one collective failure, which did make it kind of less fun. But I don’t care. The other play I had was great, and featured multiple satisfying traps that were sprung. The best was when our opponents were restricted to saying only nouns, and the first word spoken was “dirt”, a word on our list — instant failure and hilarity!
Smartphone Inc.: Really liked this one. Someone described it as Fast Food Magnate-lite, which didn’t mean much to me as I haven’t played that. The action selection mechanism was smart, the small (but variable) tech tree felt just right, and there was real tension about what to try to do in any given round. It played crisply, having only one phase that had a potential to drag, and that not by much. I really like this game and will probably be buying it. Continue reading
Sandwiches taste better in triangles. And sandwich bread tastes better without the crust (though not non-sandwich bread). Tacos are also sandwiches. I couldn’t tell you what my favorite sandwich is, but I have opinions that cut across the spectrum on other things about sandwiches. My feelings on board games aren’t dissimilar.
At times, I won’t remember if I’ve played a game before if it was years ago, and other times, I may remember the experience or the feelings, but little of the game play. But there was one game from years ago where most of the game and experience is lost to time, but there was a very specific part that was rattling around in my head for some reason in the last few weeks, and it was a location from a worker placement game.
Anyway, so I thought it would be interesting to look at worker placement games – not from the standpoint of our favorite games, but what are our favorite (whatever that word may mean to you) locations to go to.
Here’s what we think: Continue reading
OK, as many of you have noticed, and some of you have complained to me – whether in person or email – the WordPress ads have become increasingly intrusive… Much more so in the past 60 days or so.
The ads are part of the free WordPress account which the Opinionated Gamers USED to use. We do not generate any income from the ads; but we had to accept them in return for the free site.
As of today – and at least for the next 2 years, the Opinionated Gamers has upgraded their account at WordPress – and this should eliminate the ads.
It also opens up a number of new themes and widgets that we can use – and I will ask you to bear with us as we try them out. There really isn’t a playground to work on the themes, so as I have time, I will essentially install a theme and see how it goes for the next 1-2 days.
The content won’t change. We’re still gonna be posting reviews of Essen games, interviewing folks from the industry, and writing up SPIEL recaps than have no mention of the actual games shown at the fair — but how the site looks will be different at times.
Thanks for reading this, and thanks for reading our blog. Hopefully these changes improve your experience here at the Opinionated Gamers.
Before I get to my main topic, I thought it worth mentioning just how it was that – five years after stating that I did not expect to return to Spiel – I did return. In the end, it all comes down to the same reason I went in the first place – seeing people – combined with one of the outs I left myself at the time – a good opportunity, courtesy of flying too often in 2017. And – I’m glad I did go; I had a great time, primarily because of everyone I got to see and talk with.
But – I’ve come to realize, more strongly since my previous visit, that I have a mild degree of Agoraphobia. Just to be clear, it truly is mild – I would not suggest that the techniques I list below would be anywhere near sufficient for someone who is dealing with a more severe case. Crowds make me twitchy, and after too much time in a large crowd I really need to get away for a bit – but then I’m fine to venture back in. Continue reading
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