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.

Oiling My Go Stones: A Short Journey To The Smooth and Shiny

I've been focusing a lot on Go lately.  That includes watching lectures on Go theory on YouTube, playing at my University's (new) Go club and playing in an online tournament. 

And sometimes, to pass the time, I've been replaying professional games and studying patterns on my own in front of my personal Go board.  This is a calming, relaxing, evening-type activity that pairs well with some fresh warm tea. 
To further add to the experience, I decided to try my hand at oiling my Go stones.  The purpose of this process is to give the stones a softer, smoother feel and a shinier appearance.  These little details can make a big difference in the overall enjoyment of the game.

Anyway, I wanted to take things even a step further I decided to use a scented oil.  That way, not only would the stones look and feel better, but they would smell nice too.

I had this lying around.  Why, I don't remember.

"Ocean" scented oil with stick things. 

 It's some light scented oil use with the reeds to make rooms smell nice.  This one smells very nice.  But not like the ocean.  I've smelled the ocean.  It smells fishy and salty.  This smells like flowers and happy times.

A couple of notes on my oil choice:

1.  Some people oil their stones with olive oil or canola oil.  They work, but apparently the oil spoils after some time leaving your stones smelling like rot.  No.
2.  Sewing machine oil is recommended, but I don't know what that is.  I don't sew, nor do I machine.
3.  I had heard of using scented oils, seemed like a good idea.

To start, I a few drops (that's all it takes) in a ziplock and carefully dropped the stones in so as not to chip them (yunzi stones chip reasonably easily).

Then I massaged the stones with the oil in the bag until they were well coated and spilled them out of a paper towel.

My pebbly mound

 Finally, I spread them out, wiped off any excess oil, and let them dry overnight. 

The oil left a shiny coating and soft feel to the stones, but they didn't feel greasy.  And they smelled wonderful.  Not like an old lady who bathes in perfume.  Just a subtle calming scent.

You can see a before and after below.  Notice the shiny!

Left: Before oiling.  Right: SHINY!

 I did the white stones too.  They don't benefit as much in appearance as the black ones, but they do feel softer.  And the smell..

Overall, a success.

Shogun: Cube Tower and Samurai Power

Shogun is a wonderful, happy marriage between Risk and Euro-style games.  That is, a marriage between a terribly boring dice rolling sort-of wargame and the best types of games on the planet. 

There are several games out there that attempt to  create a good Euro-Risk experience.  Kemet comes to mind as another one that I have played that is pretty excellent.  Check out Jake's blog for a quick overview of Kemet as well as other some other things if you are a BSB enthusiast (Beer, Speakers, and Boardgames.  No Backstreet Boys, sadly).

Shogun is another Euro-Risk game, and it is also pretty excellent.  It is a Japanese re-theme of the German themed Wallenstein.  They are basically the same game, but just in different thematic settings.  The choice of me grabbing Shogun over Wallenstein was my love of Japanese-themed games, so an easy choice.
Actually, I bought this as a Christmas gift for my brother, who I have converted over to Euro games despite him loving Risk even though it is a horrifically bad game. Considering all the boardgames I bought as gifts this year are Japanese-themed, I had to get this one.  It was the perfect gift, really.   He loves this game now. I'm a gift-giving master.

Here's the box.  That samurai gentleman is quite handsome, looking out into the distance like that.

The sun sets, and Samurai Sam surveys the seaside for sushi for his supper.

The game takes place on a map of Japan, with players having armies on the territories that they own.  Over the course of the game, more armies will be added and existing armies moved around and used for attacking other territories.  Sounds just like risk so far...looks kind of like it too...

On top of that, there is a building element to the game.  Players can build castles, temples, or theaters in the territories they control.  At the end of each year (the game is played over 2 years, with four seasons/rounds per year), points are scored for each building built and territory owned.  Furthermore, there is an area majority mechanic that awards extra points in each collection of territories of same color for the most of each type of building built there.  This is actually the most effective way to get points, as having a castle and temple majority are worth 3 pts and 2 pts in each province. 

A temple built along the coast of Kii.

And the game continues to get more complicated (it took us 45 minutes to learn the rules and set up.  Worth it, but this game has a lot of little rules and complications).

Every round consists of 10 possible actions:  3 building actions, confiscate rice, confiscate money, a few reinforce troop numbers actions, and 2 attack actions.  All of these are depicted on your player board.

Player board.

These actions resolve in a different order each round, determined by random draw, so you can't always do things in the order that you want.  The order of the first 5 actions are revealed before the round, and the others are revealed during the round one at a time.  A common issue is the money action coming up late in the round, so you don't have enough cash to do what you want.  Got to plan around that...

Speaking of planning, before each round you place cards, relating to territory you own, onto your player board facedown. The action you take then applies to the territory whose card you placed on that action space.  For example if I place a territory card on the "build castle" space, then I can build a castle on that territory.  Likewise, a territory card on an attack space lets me attack using troops from that territory.  Not only is this an interesting idea in its own right, but it also makes it so you can't add troops to a province and attack with it on the same turn.  Again, got to plan ahead.

Planning planning, choices choices.

Getting rice (to feed the people of your territories later) and money makes the farmers of the land upset, and creates the chance for a revolt.

Revolt marker.  Don't steal from these people again.

Taking over an unoccupied territory or inciting a revolt by getting stuff from your own territory already with a revolt marker starts a fight with the farmer armies (FARMIES!!!).  Not being able to feed all of your territories at the end of the year also can lead to revolts, with the more food you can't provide leading to more and bigger revolts.  This is another typical Euro-style game mechanic of feeding that keeps overexpansion in check.

Mozzie, the bear with the drunken past and affinity for headwear, very much enjoyed the farmies.  He rooted for them from the stands.

Mozzie.  Sporting a holiday bow, sun-shielding farming hat, and a fine silver pitchfork.

But there's one more surprise left, a core element of the game....The CUBE TOWER!!!

Cube Tower!!

The cube tower is the impartial God that can turn the tide of battle.  In a battle, both attacking and defending army cubes are thrown into the tower. Whoever has more of their cube armies come out of the tower wins the battle.  All defeated side armies plus the equivalent number of winning side armies are removed and the surviving armies put on the newly conquered territory.
But here's the kicker.  These initial cubes enter, and only some of them come out.  Some of them don't.  And sometimes, ones that don't come out come back out during a later battle.

SURPRISE!!!

   

    

Top-down view of the cube tower.  There are people stuck in there!

It's fun and adds an element of suspense to every battle.
Thematically, though, I don't think this makes much sense...

In the Suruga territory:

Samurai 1:  "Where's Johnny?!"
Samurai 2:  "Lost in the mountain again, I presume.  I don't think he's quite all there."
Samurai 1:  "Well we lost the battle because he wasn't here!"

In Iyo, on the complete other side of the country:

Samurai 3: "We won the battle!!  It's all thanks to the new guy who showed up."
Johnny:  "WHO AM I!!!!"

Makes. No. Sense.
And teleporting samurai are already unrealistic, so I have no qualms naming a samurai "Johnny."

The cube tower is AMAZING!  If you have the edge in armies going into the tower versus your opponent, you will probably win the fight, BUT you always have to take into consideration what cubes are left stuck in the tower.  Maybe you fight a risky battle where you are at a disadvantage, because you have been unlucky on other turns and remember that you have a lot of cube stuck in the tower.  So there is a small element of luck here, but somewhat calculable odds of winning just means you have to choose your battles wisely.
And the suspense when throwing those cubes in is just fun.  And the surprises are fun.

Onto actually playing the game (finally).
First things first.  I started off the game with an energizing beverage.

For 100% kids, like me.

This game is intended for 3-5 players, but we only had 2 willing participants at the time.  So we went with a very simple, unofficial 2 player variant, which basically consisted of 3-player rules but on an artificially shrunk map. It's not perfect, but it worked pretty well.

The game was close.  It came down to one final battle.

I lost by one army in that battle.  Which caused a 2 point swing in the game.

Final score.  I'm yellow.  Obviously.

I lost by 2 points.

Shogun is great.  It does take about 2 hours with only 2 players, mostly due to some analysis paralysis in the planning phase later in the game.  With 3 or 4 players, it would probably take 3 hours, which is pushing my limits on how long I want to play a single game.  But that is really the only major flaw I see here.
It's pretty cool.  And the cube tower is a winner.

And in case you were wondering what happened to Samurai Johnny:

Holiday Gaming: Family Games

Because holidays are for family.

By now, you may be under the impression that I prefer heavy games, with lots of thinking and strategy and little wooden bits.

And you would be correct.  Love that stuff.

BUT, that's not to say less heavy games are bad.  I don't care for them for the most part, but I'll play them.
And so we come to Family Games.  These games (by my own definition which I am making up at this very moment) have pretty simple rules, play somewhat quickly, and almost always involve a reasonable amount of luck.  So while hardcore gamers like myself may not love these (I like lots of complexity, tough decisions, little to no luck), they are great for people like, say, my family who just want to have fun.  Hence, "family games."  These games are accessible to everyone and not just people who treat boardgames as a hobby/way of life instead of just a way to pass the time.

Enough background.  Every Christmas, I play boardgames with my family.  I try to get them to play heavy euros and rarely succeed.  So we play lighter games, where my chances of winning are significantly decreased.

Here's the rundown of the new games we played this holiday season:

1.  Sushi Go!

The name of this game is obviously borrowed from what the referee screams before a sushi eating contest (3...2...1...Sushi GO!!), or the intestinal effect one gets after eating bad mall sushi (never eat mall sushi!).
Sushi Go is a very simple card drafting game with very cute artwork.  Players play cards simultaneously, then pass their hand, then play another card, then pass the hand, etc.  The point of the game is to make sets of various types of tasty treats (tempura, nigiri, maki rolls, sashimi) which score points.  The rules are super simple, and though a lot of luck is involved there is plenty of decision making and room for strategy like any other card drafting game (knowing what's coming, what you've passed, what your opponents want).

Food should not have faces.

We played this one 5 times.  I won 3 and tied for first in another.  That counts as a net win for me.

Win Record: 1 for 1

2.  Splendor

MY PRECIOUS!!!

Splendor is a Spiel des Jahres (Family game of the year) nominee, and rightfully so.
It's all about collecting gems (henceforth referred to as "the shinies") and using those shinies to buy cards which are worth points and give you discounts on buying future cards.
On your turn, you have the options to take 3 different colored shinies, take 2 of the same color shinies, reserve a card to buy later along with a gold (joker shiny), or buy a card.

Shiny.

This game really shines in two regards.  One is the component quality.  The artwork is very well done and the shinies are depicted on very solid poker chips, not the plastic kind but the kind that makes the nice clicky noises that drive my sister crazy.  Normally I would call this a cop out, because individual gem-shaped shinies could be cooler.  But those could also be small and fiddly and I just like the way these turn out.
This game is also great, I think, as a gateway into heavier games.  The rules are simple and the decisions don't seem very tough, but there is some strategy and engine-building elements involved.

A light strategy game that looks nice and is a decent amount of fun.  I call Splendor a splendid game, though it's not complex enough for my taste, so I can't call it splendiferous.  

My mom is not so great at strategy games.  But she gets this one somehow.  She won both times we played.  Kudos to her.

Win Record: 1 for 2

3.  Machi Koro

Machi Koro is a tableu building game, where you buy cards to expand your city of Machi Koro.  The goal of the game is to build the 4 big buildings that every player starts with.  To do so, you need money, which you get from the smaller buildings you build throughout the game.

The game works on a Settlers of Catan type dice rolling system.  When a certain number is rolled, it triggers certain cards matching that number.  Say you roll a 3.  You may have a card that gives you money when you roll a 3.  Another player may have a card that give them money when anyone rolls a 3.  Another play may have a card that steals YOUR money when you roll a 3.  And some cards give you more money for having certain types of other buildings (like the Cheese factory gives you more money the more Ranches you own).

Let it be known that I absolutely hate Settlers of Catan.  I hate dice rolling.  I hate being at the mercy of that numbered cube.  I wish that die would die.

Machi Koro is very simple and highly luck-based, though there is a bit of engine-building here.  I'm just not into the dice-rolling.  Would play again with casual gamers and family, but I'm not too impressed, especially with the hype this game has been getting.

Also, my copy of the game came with several mis-cut cards, which just makes me angry.

We played once.  I had everything I needed to win.  Then I rolled a number on what should have been my final turn that let everyone else steal my money so I couldn't buy the winning building.

Win Record: 1 for 3

4.  Tokaido

Tokaido is a game about traveling across Japan, doing all the things vacationing travelers would do in Japan.  Eat good food, meet other travelers, take in the beautiful scenery, buy souvenirs, stuff like that.
Players move across the road as many spaces as they like on their turn, however whoever is farthest back on the road gets the next turn.  So you have the choice to jump far ahead of everyone and get to those hot springs before someone else can, but then players behind you can take it more slowly and get in extra turns while they mosey along a few spaces at a time.
Decisions in this game involve choosing when to jump ahead and stick behind and when to take what you want/need versus blocking spaces from other players who need them.  Kinda interesting.

Peace be the journey.

While there are decisions to make, there are few difficult ones.  Decision making becomes more important towards the end of the game, when players need that one last visit to the temple or last souvenir to complete their set, but early game consists of everyone moving as slow as possible to get as much stuff as possible which isn't too exciting.

Yet there is a very zen feel to this game.  I just enjoyed the trip.  And when I didn't have any particularly good plan, I just went shopping.  Shopping is always fun.  This game is just like real life.
Furthermore, this game is very thematic and very pretty.  I like Japanese-themed games, mostly because of the artwork that goes along with it, and this game is no exception.

I would suggest this one if you are looking for a pretty, thematic, chill game.

Oh, and I won this one.

Win Record: 2 for 4

5.  Wasabi

Hot.

I picked up Wasabi at my local game store recently, knowing it was out of print (I have a thing for having to have games that are out of print) and that it was a family game I could give as a gift to them.

Wasabi is about playing ingredient tiles on the board one at a time, trying to get ingredients in a row that match one of your recipes.  The recipes vary in length from 2 to 5, with more points awarded for completing harder recipes.  Furthermore, the ingredients for 3 to 5 length recipes don't have to be in order listed on the card, but doing so means completing the recipe "with style", awarding you green wasabi cubes which are extra points on top of the points for just completing the recipe.  Wasabi cubes get stored in little ceramic bowls, which are there for no real reason other than to look awesome.

The final complication is that completing a recipe allows you to take a special power card, like the Spicy! card which lets you play two ingredients on a turn instead of one, or the Stack! card which lets you play on top of a previously played tile, or the Wasabi! card which gets you a wasabi cube when played and is used to block spaces on the board to block other players from completing recipes there.

Very easy light game.  Lots of luck involved, tiny bit a strategy, involving a bit of planning but mostly involving being mean and blocking people.

The being mean strategy led me to the win by a landslide.

Win Record: 3 for 5


That's the final score.  Decent win rate, especially compared to my 0 for 7 last holiday season :/

Hope everyone got in some great gaming over the holidays!

Happy Holidays from the Panda Meeple!

Happy Holidays from all of us (just me) at the Panda Meeple.  May your days be merry and bright and full of games.

 

And be nice, because Panda-Claws is coming soon.