The Lonely Boardgamer, Episode 1: Luna (Solo)

Things get lonely sometimes for a boardgamer.  Friends move away, and while there are ways to play games online or via Skype (still need to try the latter, by the way), options are limited.  Both because because there aren't many games available online and playing  via webcam doesn't lend itself to games with hidden information or a lot of piece manipulation. 

It makes me sad.  Sometimes it gets so bad that I start hearing voices, though it's usually just my stuffed panda talking to himself so no real worries there.

Sure, there are other things to do.  But you can't play guitar when you've sliced your finger wide open with a surprisingly sharp ceramic knife (seriously, I still can't get over how sharp these things are.  It's a gift and apparently also a curse).  And you can only play Resident Evil 4 on your computer in the dark for so long before you're convinced that there are zombies clawing at your front door and have to stop and turn the lights back on.

Because of these setbacks, I decided to play Luna solo tonight.

Yeah, some board games have solo versions, and they are always welcome.

Moon Priestess.  Lives by the sea.  Has a magic staff.  Dyes her hair white.

Luna is one of Stefan Feld's more thematic games.  It's also been out of print for a while, but I found a reasonably priced copy a while back and snagged it, mostly because out of print games call to me in a very enticing fashion.
In Luna, players control acolytes trying to make their way into positions in the temple while following the beautiful moon priestess around like puppies trying to win her blessings.  Or something like that.

The game comes with a pretty neat board that fits together like a puzzle.

 

The assembled board consists of a central temple area and an outer ring of Holy Isles that your acolytes travel to and from to activate different actions.  The positioning of the islands is random every game, as are the tiles placed in the temple and the starting positions of some of the pieces, adding a bit of random variety to the game on setup.

A Holy Isle.

Acolyte meeples have robes. Or dresses.  Or maybe ghost tails.

I've played this one 2-players a couple of times with some enjoyment.  However, the game instructions also come with a solo variant that I thought I'd give a try.  So here we go:

Step 1 to playing boardgames solo is music choice.  There's no one else at the table to talk to and no one to get distracted by the sound, so blast the music all you want.  Something really heavy, face-melting, awesome ...

She's everywhere to me...

With the mood set, it was time to get into the game.  Solo Luna pits you against an AI who follows a few set rules every turn.  I don't like the idea of playing a faceless opponent though, so I gave it a familiar face...

Mozzie is back with a new hat and a new drink.

Today Mozzie is sporting a thermal beanie, because it's very cold and snowy outside, and a Stone IPA.  I hate IPAs, so he's the only one who will drink them now.  He's also discovered that airline pillows make great seat cushions.

Now back to the game.  On each turn, you use active acolytes to carry out actions.  These consist of a a few options, including moving acolytes from isle to isle, placing them in the temple, picking up action tiles that give you special actions, gaining more acolytes to work with, moving up in position in the temple council, building shrines...you know, just a few options.
Summarized on this super easy to read, not confusing at all player aid:

Once the acolytes are used, they are spent for the turn and apparently have to lie down in the ocean.

Besides the acolytes, there are a few more characters at play.
There's the Master Builder.  If you have a shrine action tile and acolytes on the same space as him, you can build a shrine.  Shrines count as free acolytes for performing some actions, help with area majority on islands, and are worth 4 points a piece at endgame.

You can tell he's a Master because of the beard.

Shrine.

There's the temple guard.  He shows you what temple spaces are available to sit in each round and how many points putting acolytes there is worth.  Placing acolytes in the temple scores a point per at the end of each round, plus an additional amount upon placement depending on the round, with these values diminishing as the game progresses.

Temple Guard

 
There's the apostate.  He whispers sweet nothings into the ears of any acolytes near him, turning them to the dark side and making you lose points.

Severus Snape

When I played this 2-player with my brother, we decided apostate was too hard to say.  So we called him "the prostate."
This then led to 30 straight minutes of prostate related humor.

"The role of the prostate in this game is a bit enlarged."
"Yeah, the prostate really restricts the flow of the game."

We had a million of 'em.

Finally, there is the Moon Priestess herself.  Whoever has a majority of active acolytes on the isle she is on at the end of the turn wins her favor and scores a bunch of points.

Moon priestess.

The three characters move from isle to isle at the end of each turn.  So part of your time is spent running your acolytes away from the prostate and toward the builder and priestess.


So you score points from the Moon Priestess, having shrines, and placing acolytes in the temples.

You also get points by bumping people out of the temple by sitting down next to them with a higher numbered tile.  Unless of course they are protected by a Book of Knowledge, then they are too smart to get kicked out.

And if you don't use all your action tiles, you score a point for each unused one at the end of the game.

Herb tile.  Normally used to revive passed out acolytes.  That's some good herb.

Finally, you score endgame points for your position in the temple council.

The seats get squishier the higher you go.

So in the solo game, the AI does stuff and you try your best to also do stuff and hinder the AI from doing his stuff.  Your final score is the difference between your points and the AI points.
The instructions come with 3 levels of difficulty.  I played at Level 2 because easy level seems lame and Level 3 was brutal last time I attempted this game solo.  Basically, the difficulty levels affect what the AI does and what you are allowed to do, with Level 3 being very restrictive (basically freezing all actions on the island occupied by the prostate with no option to move him.  That makes the game hard).

Here was my stack of points at the end of the game.  There's no point track, so you just stack these things up.

Favor tokens

Final temple status.

At the end of the game, the temple was pretty segregated, with everyone kicked out along the border of conflict.  Our acolytes didn't like each other.

I had more than the AI by a score of 88 to 73, so a score of 15.  I don't know if this is good or not, but the game didn't seem particularly tense so I'm going to say Level 2 is too easy.

Overall, the game is pretty decent with multiple players, and just kinda okay solo.  I'd play it again for something to do, but even with all the action options it just doesn't seem brain-burning enough to be a great solo game.  Maybe at Level 3 I'll have to think a little harder.

It is a really pretty game though with some cool pieces.  So there's that.

Oh, and in the end Mozzie refused to accept defeat.  He even made his own trophy.

New Games on the Block

Despite what your parents told you, new board games do not come from the stork.  That would be ridiculous.  Board games and babies couldn't possibly come from the same place.

No, the answer is not so simple.  The process of picking out, buying and prepping a new board game for play is more complex than that.  Here's how it works.

Step 1: The Board Game Itch

You haven't bought a new game in a while.  You are a collector, always looking to add to your collection.  And there's that empty space on your shelf.  And that paycheck is burning a hole in your pocket.  And you start to develop a little twitch.  And then...and then...!!!!  And then your self control is gone!

 

This is the board game itch. It's like having an army of spiders crawling along your back.  Spiders made of poison ivy.  Poison ivy spiders that eat your money.  But you love them.
And it was meant to be scratched.  Just like a cookie was meant to be nommed.

When it strikes, you need to find a new game to buy.  The place to start looking is boardgamegeek.com.  If you've read my other posts, you'll see several links to this site already, and there will be more to come.  Look at their game list where you can find pretty much every game ever made listed in order of user ratings. The top 100 are a good place to start looking for a new game.  Unless you are like me and have a gaming group that already owns most of those.  But the site is huge, and you can spend hours searching through the game list and forums to find just the right one.

For my latest search, I looked at games by designer.  Our group has been playing a lot of Stefan Feld games lately and enjoying them very much.  I stumbled upon one game that looked intriguing.

Luna:  A game with a moon on the box.

The box was pretty.  I won't go into game details here.  I just wanted to show you the box with the white haired witchy woman with the glowy stick.

So the game looked interesting, the box looked interesting, and the game designer is known for putting out some gems.
But it also appeared to be out of print in the US.

This happens a lot.  Designer board games are only printed in limited quantities.  Sometimes they get reprinted after the first sellout.  Sometimes they don't.  And it's terrifying to think that you will never own a great game because it is not available anywhere.
But sometimes you get lucky and can find that one, single online store that has a couple copies left in stock and is not selling them for ridiculously inflated prices.  So you buy it...

Step 2: Buy another one

Because you are already paying for shipping.  Duh.

I bought this one too, another Feld game that was just published last year.

I like boxes with puppies on the cover.

Step 3:  Wait

Wait for it...

Step 4: Ask and you shall receive

I ordered these games from an online store called Game Surplus.  The information section on their website has this amusing little tidbit:

"we further minimize our shipping costs down by reusing boxes and shipping materials (in clean, good condition ) whenever possible. So, don't be surprised if a box of 'Pop Tarts' shows up at your door."

I got super excited about the pop tarts.  Or something better.
I was actually a little disappointed with the box I got.

Sorry to say it, but this box is boring.

 It's not a bad box.  It is in one piece, made of sturdy cardboard, holds things well, does everything a good little box should do.  Sadly, though, it isn't pop tarts or gopher repellent.
There is some interesting graffiti inside though...

 

 What strange markings...

And inside there were board games and some appreciation!  So I was very happy.

YOU'RE WELCOME!

Needless to say this place is awesome and I will probably order from them again in the future.

Step 5: Punch and Package

In my opinion, the best part of a new game isn't that fresh new cardboard smell.  It's the piece punching.  It's just so much fun! Look...

Pre-punching:

Mid-punch:

Post-punching:

Awww...why's the fun gone?

Wasn't that exciting?!  The answer is yes.  It's the best.
And then you wish you had more games so you could punch more.

And now with all those tasty little cardboard bits, you have to put them somewhere.  It's great when the games come with their own little baggies.

A cacophony of wood and plastic.

Of course, you can trick out your game further with nicer storage options.  And putting card protector sleeves on all cards is a must.  Hey, you just spent $50 on a game.  Protect your investment!

Put the cardies in the sleevies.  And the bits in the boat.

Step 6:  It's Playtime!

Everything is set.  Grab some friends and play!

Macao: Cubes and Punishment

It's time to get down to business.  First order of business: there will be no pandas this week.  I know that's disappointing, but the pandas need their rest too.

No, this time I am talking about a board game, which I promised this blog was about.  And I keep my promises.

Today's game is Macao. (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/55670/macao)  The box calls it "An exciting strategy game for clever captains and wise governors."  That's a very narrow audience for a game, but luckily I fit the bill.

The Captain Morgan pose is a nice touch. Clever, Captain!

The basic idea of the game is that you are in the port city of Macao, and you are trying to earn prestige (which is a fancy way of saying "points") by, well, doing stuff there.
This 'stuff' mostly involves building up the city, shipping goods in your little wooden boat meeples and giving away gold.

BOAT MEEPLES!!!!

The city, where you buy stuff and build stuff.

Over the course of the game, you get cards that you can activate by playing cubes of the same colors as those given on the card.  Once you do this, the cards can do cool stuff.  Like give you points or move your boat meeple, or get you more cubes.
Every turn you roll very very pretty colored wooden dice, and the numbers and colors of the dice you choose (you get to choose 2, good things come in pairs) tell you how many cubes you get of each color AND also how many turns away until you get to use them.  This means you can take less cubes and use them sooner or more cubes if you are willing to wait to use them.  It's a neat game mechanic, really.

The pretty colored wooden dice and a couple of cards.  Fine craftsmanship, indeed.

You keep track of which turn you can use your cubes by a sweet spinny wheel.  It's got an arrow that points to "use these this turn."  Which works well, until you get too excited and spin it too many times or too fast and fling your cubes everywhere.  It's unfortunate, because as a clever captain or wise governor, getting overexcited is part of the job description.

The spinny wheel has things neat and organized for the moment.

About Cubes:  Wooden cubes are a staple of a lot of board games.  They are a 3D object bounded by 6 square faces, a regular hexahedron, if you will. Usually quite small. They are high in fiber.

Sometimes the cubes have meaning within the game's theme. Sometimes they are just cubes that do stuff.  I don't know which is the case in this game, because I didn't read the rules.

Trying to get the number and colors of cubes you need all in the same place for a single turn to actually do stuff requires thinking several moves ahead, and some luck.  Sometimes you feel absolutely paralyzed on a turn when you can't do anything you want.  Then you look up from your miserable pile of paper and wood and everyone else has a look on their face that says they are in the exact same boat [meeple].  

The most terrifying part of this game comes when you do something bad.  Like have too many unplayed cards or have zero cubes to play on a turn.  Then you get punished.  
Seriously, this thing is called a 'punishment marker.' 

Consider yourself punished.

This thing is worth negative 3 points.  Look at that glaring red "-3." But the worst part is that the rules specifically call this a "punishment". That word makes me feel like a puppy who just did something bad.

This puppy:

"I so sowwy. Pwease let me out."

That is not my puppy.  I would never put a puppy in the Box of Shame.  I would forgive him, because of adorable-ness.
For more Corgi adorable-ness: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-25-cutest-corgi-puppies-currently-online 

You looked at the Corgi puppies?  You're back now?  No, go ahead, look at some more Corgi puppies!  Take your time.  I understand.

Welcome back!

So here's our game that we played the other day.  A Tuesday I believe.  As good a day as any.

The beginning:

The empty canvas.

I like to ship rice.  I shipped all 3 rice (rices?) and got lots of points.  I like rice.  The chop sticks always give me trouble though.

My OCD is bothered by that middle one being upside down...

End of game:

So much stuff!  Looks cool, right?

Games tend to look super busy and super awesome at the end.  I believe this one is no exception.  Look at all the stuff!

See that orange token ahead of everyone on the point track?  That would be mine :)

This is what it looks like when I win.

By the way, I'm told I over-exaggerate how often I lose.  Maybe so, but if I convince myself that I never win, it makes winning that much more exciting.

That's the game.  It plays pretty quick, only about an hour.  And even though it is REALLY hard to do what you want,  that keeps things interesting.  I like this game.  In part because I won.  But mostly because the dice are pretty.

So there you have it.  I talked about a board game, as promised.  Like I said, I keep my promises.

But I lied about the pandas...