Dale Yu: First Impressions of Vegas and Wanzen Tanzen

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Dale Yu

So far, 2012 is earning the title of “The year of the dice game”.  It feels like many of the new releases from Nuremberg involve dice.  Some of the dice games are novel, some of them are dicey versions of board or card games, and some are repackaged versions of older games.  We’ve already discussed a number of the new dice games in the past few weeks – Keltis Wurfelspiel, Einfach Genial wurfelspiel and Wurfel Bohnanza – all of which fall into the dice-implementation of an older game category. This week, I’ll give my first impressions on two other games, Vegas (novel) and Wanzen Tanzan (mostly borrowed).

Vegas

Designer: Rudiger Dorn
Publisher: Alea
Time:  25 minutes
Ages:  8 and up
# of players:  2-5
Times played: 1 with borrowed copy at Gathering of Friends


Vegas is the new Alea release – this one coming in a smaller box.  This is definitely a move away from the more complex games that I used to associate with Alea with a Complexity rating of 1

The goal in Vegas is to earn the most money by skillfully placing dice in the different casinos over the four rounds in the game.  The board, as it were, in Vegas is made up of six different tiles – each with the real image and title of a Vegas Casino (though I do not think that there is any official licensing going on here –just different laws/practices with trademarks in Germany).  Each of the casinos is associated with a specific die face. Continue reading →

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The Art of Design: interviews to game designers #19 – Donald X Vaccarino

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Andrea "Liga" Ligabue

I’m going close to the 20th interview but, luckly, there are still interesting designers to interview. Today I’m gone to interview Donald X Vaccarino, mostly know for his Dominion series but with a design history going back in the end of the last century. Donald X brings to my attention the fact that games are not only theme and mechanic, but also data “I think of games as having three main pieces: mechanics, flavor, and data. And usually I make them in that order. The mechanics are, you know, what you do, the main part of it anyway. Flavor is the theme. And then data is just the information in the game.”. During the interview we discussed about the meaning of art and Donald X cited Frank Zappa “art is what’s in the frame”. Now I think it is time to go on with the interview.

[Liga] Dear Donald, with this series of interviews I’m trying to explore the world of game designers with the idea that designing games is a form of art, no more or less than writing books or casting movies. Of course the boundary within art and craftsmanship is usually thin and some designers prefers to describe as good craftsman instead of artist. What we try to do together is, looking through your production, to find your style, your special sign … common traits in your games.

According to BGG you have designed less than 10 games, starting from Dominion in 2008, so you are really a young designer (I’m used to interview designers with something like 10 or more years of career) but since the effect of Dominion in the games designing scene I’m really interested to make you some questions.

The answer could be predictable but, there is some game you are particularly proud of ?

Continue reading →

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First Impression – 7 Wonders: Cities

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Mark Jackson
7 Wonders: Cities
Designer:  Antoine Bauza
Publisher:  Repos Production
Time:  30 minutes (45-60 minutes for the team game)
Ages:  10 and up
# of players:  2-8
Times Played: 3 with a pre-production copy
first impression by Mark Jackson

The real trick for any expansion is to, well, expand the scope of the game in some way that doesn’t mess up the goodness of the original creation. In the case of 7 Wonders, that means you have to add more choices to the game without adding extraneous fiddly rules and/or mechanics – the streamlined nature of the base game is a key part of its popularity. Continue reading →

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Mary Dimercurio Prasad: Review of Zooloretto Würfelspiel

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Mary Prasad
Zooloretto WürfelspielImage
Designer: Michael Schacht
Publisher: AbacusSpiele
Players: 2-4
Ages: 7+
Play Time: 15 minutes

 

Zooloretto Würfelspiel is a lighter, faster, compact version of Zooloretto. It gives you the same feel as Zooloretto but without all the calories!

The game comes with 10 custom animal dice, a small square two-sided game board, a pad of specialized score sheets, and a pencil. Each die shows 5 types of animals and one coin. The number of dice used depends on the number of players: use 6 dice for two players, use 8 for three, and all 10 for four. One side of the game board shows 3 trucks – it will be used in games with two or three players. The other side shows 4 trucks – it will be used in games with four players. Each truck has 3 crates for animals. Each player takes a score sheet, representing his zoo (explained in more detail below).

The game is played in rounds by rolling dice and filling in checkboxes on the score sheets, according to what dice were claimed during the round. The goal of the game is to score the most points.

Continue reading →

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Village: A Review

Posted on May 4, 2012 by gamekahuna

Village
Design by:  Markus and Inka Brand
Art by: Dennis Lohausen
Published by:
999 Games
Albi
eggertspiele
Gigamic
Ludonova
Pegasus Spiele
Tasty Minstrel Games (review copy provided by TMG)
2 – 4 Players,
listed time 60-75 minutes (perhaps 90 for the first game)
Review by:  Jonathan Franklin

Village is The Game of Life you grew up with as a kid.  OK, it is a super-Euroized multi-generational medieval Game of Life.  Each player has multiple generations of a family to control and lets them lead their lives and bring great glory to the family name.  The family with the most glory at the end of the game wins.

Village is an excellent 60-90 minute Euro with a few caveats that might or might not be important to you.  I want to get the caveats out of the way first, just so you know what is what.

1. The end game trigger is filling the town’s Book of Honor or the pauper’s graveyard.  How do you do those?  By having your family members die.  If you are uncomfortable with the fact that the game encourages you to work your family members to the bone quickly and have them pass on to bring glory to the family name, this game is probably not for you (or it will last hours longer than intended).  My first few games I was trying to keep my family members alive and the game did not really grab me.  Once I internalized that I should be killing the first generation off while having them do things that would benefit their descendants, the game clicked.  In all honesty, the illustrations could probably have been done by Edward Gorey or Tim Burton, rather than Dennis Lohausen.  Dennis did a beautiful job with the board, but it does not communicate the darkness of the game’s theme.

Continue reading →

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Dale Yu: Review of Wurfel Bohnanza

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Dale Yu

Wurfel Bohnanza
Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
Ages: 10+
Players: 2-5
Time: about 30 mins

Times played: 6 plays (all with 4 or 5 players) with purchased copy

Review by: Dale Yu


The Bohnanza train keeps chugging along.  Similar to Carcassonne and Age of Steam, the expansions/version simply keep coming out for this beloved series.  In keeping with the big trend of 2012, this new release is a dice version of the game.

From the unofficial English translation of the rules (thanks to Player77) – Bean farmers want to have fun with a dice game after a hard day’s work at the field as well. Here they have the possibility to roll Bean orders with luck and skill. When a Player completes more Bean orders, he will earn more Beantalers. What’s special: The opponents can use the active players dice rolls to complete the Bean orders on their own Harvest cards. The first player to earn 13 Beantalers is the winner of the game. Continue reading →

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