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Weds first post
Posted in Convention Report, Essen 2014, Uncategorized
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Dale Yu: Super quick thoughts on Spellcaster and Dungeon Bazar
We played a few games last night – here’s what I could write about them before breakfast. Expect longer coverage at some point in the future (you know, November-ish).
Spellcaster
Super fast tactical game, takes 10-15 minutes to play. Each player starts with 10 power (yellow gems) and 2 sapphire gems. You can win in two ways: 1) acquire 15 gems OR 2) reduce your opponent to 0 power. Game is totally card based. There are 4 different suits of cards – and 4 mats on table to match suits. On your turn, you draw a card, and then can take 2 actions: play a card from your hand (which you orient towards yourself), activate any card that is oriented towards you, draw an extra card. All of the cards are pretty straightforward, and each of the 4 suits has a particular theme – red is usually a drain attack on your opponent, blue usually gets you blue gems, etc.
Posted in Essen 2014, First Impressions
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Last thing Tuesday
Posted in Essen 2014
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Hyperborea: The What and the How
When I consider new games these days, especially when going through the monster that is the Essen list for this year, it takes a few things to get me to look deeper at a game. Art, designer, publisher, and theme are things that will get me to go to a game’s BGG page. But once there, and I am looking at mechanisms, pretty quickly I want 2 questions answered: “What are we doing in the game?” and “How do we do it?”
For me, almost all games can be quickly categorized and understood by cursorily answering those 2 questions. The What defines what can be visibly seen to be going on on the game board; the action of what takes place. The How defines the methods by which the players control the action; the mechanisms of the game.
Posted in Essen 2014, Reviews
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Italians goes Essen: part 2
Me and Caterina are ready to start our Father in the Messe report. Wednesday we will fly to Koln and than take train to Essen. I think we play some games also during the trip: Small World or Kingsburg on iPad mostly but we are thinking about taking with us Splendor (just the cards and the coins, not the box!) and/or Innovation, two of our best 2-players games. Caterina is now close to 14 (it looks like most as a young lady than my little kid with braids) but she know she can’t get too much space for dresses or other useless (at least for a fat 42 years old gamer) in our suitcases. Our luggage have to be filled with games to play and review in the way back.
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We have just one fixed meeting: International Gamers Awards ceremony – Thursday at 1PM at BGG Booth … then you will meet us at the tables: I’m playing Red and Caterina playing Green!
but now I can continue with my coverage of Italian Essen’s releases. Here Italians goes Essen: part 1
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Posted in Essen 2014, First Impressions, Preview, Uncategorized
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