From the monthly archives:

November 2006

Gipf collection complete

November 30, 2006

With the today’s arrival of Yinsh, my Gipf collection is complete. It doesn’t include Tamsk (hard to get, not very interesting behind the time pressure) or Pünct (a connection game) or most of the extra sets (none but number two with the Zèrtz rings). Another collection was recompleted with the newfangled Buka Invasion set for [...]

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Crystal Code

November 27, 2006

Review of Crystal Code in Finnish. Crystal Code is designed by Grzegorz Rejchtman, the designer of Ubongo. The two games are similar: in both games, players race against time and each other to solve pattern recognition problems for rewards. What’s most important, both games manage to avoid the most common pitfall of speed games. Often [...]

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Aqua Romana

November 27, 2006

Review of Aqua Romana in Finnish. Aqua Romana is a tile-laying game where players build Roman aqueducts. Theme doesn’t make much sense, as usual — the players score points for the length of aqueducts, so efficiency flies out of the window. However, the Roman theme is used well in the art, and the board is [...]

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Celtica

November 26, 2006

Review of Celtica in Finnish Celtica, a game by well-known designer duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling was published recently in Finland. I was curious to try the game; for background, I had read the less-than-favourable comments from the Geek, combined with Bruno Faidutti’s recommendation. The game certainly looks delicious, from the beautiful box cover [...]

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Pub session: Tower of Babel, Aqua Romana, Celtica, Elefant

November 23, 2006

I’ve been on vacation this week, and took the opportunity to have a small game session in a local pub. It was a decent environment for games, though there was exactly two tables on the non-smoking side that were lit well enough. Not an ideal environment, and if possible, I’ll still prefer places where you [...]

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Games with Olli: Gipf, Zèrtz, Crystal Code, Celtica

November 21, 2006

Olli made a quick visit yesterday for some games. We started with Gipf. Now, played face-to-face with a real board and the correct rules, I think the game’s actually pretty good. My play-by-email experiences didn’t do the game justice, I suppose. Now it was definitely fun. I think I’ll be playing more of this, especially [...]

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On The Spot Games

November 8, 2006

Yesterday I got a bunch of games from On The Spot Games. All the games are designed by James Ernest and Mike Selinker, and aimed towards somewhat mass-market crowd, I’d say — they are very simple games, some definitely aimed for the party game audience, others for couples or families. I already tried Kotsuku, which [...]

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Helcon 2006

November 7, 2006

Helcon 2006 was a blast, and the most successful event of the Board Game Society history with almost 100 participants. I was there for the Saturday (limitation caused by being a parent; unfortunate for the gaming, but rewarding in other ways). I didn’t play that many games, but as you will see, sometimes (well, often) [...]

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