Go: A Game of Stones

Just FYI, my blog hit 500 page views this week.  That's a nice round number, half a millennium.

So in honor of this first milestone, I wish to tell you about my favorite game ever:

Go.  That's the name of the game.  I don't want you to go anywhere.  I want you to stay here and keep reading.
 
It is an abstract strategy game at it's finest.  Few rules, endless variability, and looks great on a coffee table.

I've been playing Go for almost 8 years now, long before I got really into designer boardgames as a hobby.  It is the only game I have rated a solid 10/10 on my boardgamegeek profile.  Every other great game can only get at best a 9.5, because that is a rule I set for myself.  Go is my favorite and that will never change.  It is so great, I made sure it was the inaugural game on my game table.

But enough about me.  You come here to hear about the games.  Or maybe you come here for me.  That would be quite flattering.

Go requires only a few components: A board and some stones.

The board consists of a 19x19 grid of lines.  That's it.

Here's mine:

My precious.

My board is made of bamboo, 3/4" thick.  It's a pretty good looking board for pretty cheap.  And it's a favorite of pandas.
Boards come in a variety of woods and thicknesses.  Thicker boards and nicer woods cost more.  The one I have is a table board, but you can get ones with feet on them that are meant for placing on the floor.  The fanciest boards are floor boards made from 700 year old Kaya trees grown in a particular region of Japan and are like 8 inches thick or something.  They can run several hundred thousand dollars. *Sigh*...I can dream.

You also needs stones.  Here are my Go stones (not to be confused with my gall stones).

A bowl of stones.

These are the black stones.  There are also white ones.  They come in fancy wooden bowls.  Everything about this game screams fine craftsmanship.
These stones are made out of Yunzi.  Few know what they are actually made of; it's a secret Chinese recipe.  Yunzi stones are relatively inexpensive but still look and feel very nice.  And the black ones are known for the strange green glow when held up to the light.
Probably the most well known/ fancy stones are shell and slate (the white ones are from shells, and the black from slate).  The shells are from polished shells of a particular Japanese clam, and they have just lovely lovely patterns on them.  They are also expensive. *Sigh*...I can dream.

The game starts with 2 players, each with a set of stones, and an empty board.

My blank canvas.

Starting with black, the players take turns placing stones of the intersections of lines of the board.  The goal of the game is to secure territory by enclosing areas with your stones.  This is complicated by the fact that there are capturing rules that "kill" stones if they get surrounded by an opponent's stones in certain ways.  Those rules are hard to explain quickly.  I'll refer you to the Wikipedia page for that.

But when you capture an opponent's stone, you get to clink it into the lid of your stone bowl for safe keeping.

My captures

 These are my skinny fingers placing a stone on the board.  That weird grip is the proper way to hold a stone.  To place the stone, your index finger slides out and your middle finger presses the stone onto the board with a satisfying 'clack,' or 'thwak' if you really get into it.  I save my 'thwak' for moves that say "sorry, but you probably just lost."

Throughout the game, you make all sorts of pretty shapes.  Some of them are common enough to have names.  Like this one:

Bamboo joints!!

This shape is called bamboo joints!!  Yay panda!! 
Ahem...excuse me.

Once both players decide there is nothing useful left to do and pass, the game ends.  You then count the spaces that you have enclosed by your stones plus the number of stones you have captured to get a final score.  Since black went first in the game, a slight advantage, white is award an extra few points to compensate called komi.  There are several different sets of scoring rules, but I usually play by Japanese scoring rules which award a 6.5 point komi to white.  The 0.5 point ensures that there are no ties.  Good games can be won by only that half a point. 
This is how a game with my brother turned out.  I played white, he played black.  It was not a good game for me.

This is a disaster for white.

He won by an embarrassingly large margin.  Maybe you can see it, but black owns a lot more spaces than white.  It's disgusting.

Anyway, I like Go a lot.  It has simple rules, but is actually a very complicated, deep game.  If you want to learn a lot, I would suggest checking out Sensei's Library.  It has everything from beginner's tips to advanced strategies and position analysis.  It's great. 

You can also find several Go servers that let you play with people online.  KGS is nice for live games, and is especially accepting of beginning players.  Dragon Go Server (DGS) is my favorite, and is a faster modern equivalent of playing by mail.  That is, you have a time limit of like 30 days or something and the players don't have to be online at the same time, it's all done turn by turn at your leisure.  I like this style actually.  And I also like dragons.

So I would of course recommend that you try Go.  All the cool people are playing it.

 

I'm allowed to reuse this panda picture from a previous post because it is way too adorable to use only once.

The Art of Cube and Meeple Stacking

Sometimes I have a short attention span.

It's quite odd really.  I can sit down and play a brain-burner of a game for 4 hours with no problem usually.  But those 5 minutes where we are reminding ourselves of the game rules before we start just get to me.

Luckily, the best board games come packed with bits of fun that are even better when employed beyond their intended use.  Like cats who sit in empty shipping boxes.  Or kids with bubblewrap.  Or adults with bubblewrap.
What I mean is that all the little meeples and cubes and other bits that come with a game make great stacking toys while you're killing time waiting for the game to get started or for your turn to come around again.  It is truly a fine art, using your time efficiently in constructing Meeple Masterpieces.

We played Troyes the other night.  It's a cool little game, but I didn't take pictures of it.  I was too busy talking to myself.  And the meeples.  The meeples each have their own voices.  I wish you could hear them.
And they told me to take pictures of their stacking feats!  So I did. Enjoy.

Meeple cheerleaders.

Platform shoes are back in style, and in designer orange!

Meeple fortress!

King of the castle!

Just stack things.  It's fun.

I realize I haven't given you a full game post in a while.  Some of you might actually care.  And you deserve better, especially if you are one of the maybe 5 people who actually read this blog regularly.
I was going to do one this weekend, I really was.  But then I played board games and cleaned my house and ate a lot of tacos instead. 

The next post will be for a full game.  I promise, I think.

Pandas Love Boardgames: The Adventures of Panda Friend

Bichlien was kind enough to bring me back a new friend from her visit to the San Diego zoo.  Somehow she got the idea that I really like pandas...It was a wonderful birthday present!

Yes, I just had a birthday.  Send gifts if you wish.  I don't mind.

Say hello to my Panda Friend!

Panda on my game table.  Pandas love boardgames.

Yes, this is my panda friend.  I haven't given it a name yet.  Right now, "Panda"  will do.

And he LOVES boardgames!  Because pandas love boardgames.  It's a fact.  Trust me.  I'm an expert on both.

Panda playing Bruges.  Don't let the cuteness fool you.  He's cutthroat.

Look at the little paws holding the cards! 

Panda playing Go.  He's really likes the color scheme.  And the bamboo board.

He's really found a good home I think.  He fits in well.

Yes, he fits nicely.

He's even making friends...

Panda  and meeple, pre-fusion into the Panda Meeple.

Panda and panda-phone-nightstand. Twinsies.

And raiding my fridge...

Where do you keep the bamboo?

And getting into mischief...

He sleeps in the same position I do...

Awww, he can spell his name!

But mostly, he's just been chillin' and bein' a bro.

Cheers!

Tzolk'in The Mayan Calendar: The Spinning Wheels of Doom

Tzolk'in the Mayan Calendar is a game about Mayans, and their workers who eat corn, and offering skulls to the gods so that they give you points, and spinning wheels.

Not "spinning wheel" like Sleeping Beauty being clumsy around a thread making machine.  "Spinning wheel" as in plastic gears that spin on the gameboard, moving all your dudes around and around with each turn to different spaces on the board.  More on that later...

I'm not sure how to pronounce the game title, exactly.  But the way I pronounce it (which is, then, the correct way) is "Zol-kin."  Kind of like "Zoltar," the magic fortune-telling machine from the Tom Hanks classic "Big."  (You know you've seen it.  Giant piano scene?  Yeah, you love that.)
I made the "T" silent.  I bet it is.  It should be.  More "T"s should be silent.

...Here's the box:

Halloween costume idea.

Yeah, he's holding a skull.  A crystal skull.  It's very important to the game.

"To game or not to game?  That is the question."

You know what? While we're at it, let's throw in the expansion to this game: Tribes and Prophecies.  You see, this is one of my favorite games.  And it's like buying a Barbie where you can't just have the doll but also have to accessorize and buy the dream home and the pink convertible and a Ken when she gets lonely and....wait what was I talking about?
Oh, yeah, I like the game and so I bought the expansion to add even more mechanics to the game and hopefully make it better.

Here's the box for the expansion, too.  Because you LOVE pictures of boxes.

Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Check out the game board, pre-game.  There's a lot going on already.  And you get a sneak peak at the spinny wheels.

The basic idea of the game is that on a turn you either place workers on the game board or pull them off (only one or the other, no a combination of both).  Placing workers gets them on the board spaces, and pulling them off allows you to take the action corresponding to the space they are on.  But...
Each turn the wheels spin, pushing your workers to a new space.  Typically, the longer you let your guys ride on their Mayan Merry-Go-Round the better the actions become.  So you want to find a balance between doing stuff and having patience to let your guys chill so they can do better stuff later.

One of the spinny wheels, connected to the bigger central spinny wheel.

Ok, this is going to be the greatest thing to have ever been on this blog.  It's a video.  Of a board game.  I usually don't do this, because most board games don't having spinny wheels strapped onto the board.

Ready?  Here you go:

You. Are. Welcome.

Here's a bunch of workers on a wheel.  It's pretty.

It's like a rainbow, but not in order.  And missing colors.

The players each start out with a couple of randomly drawn starting tiles, which give them stuff to start the game with.

Starting with some corn, a rock, some more corn, some logs, and some street cred with the green god.

Corn is the currency of the game.  It lets you place workers and perform certain actions.  Also, 4 times throughout the game, there is a feeding day where you must give up 2 corn for every worker in your possession.  Because they've been working and they are hungry.  If you don't feed them, the gods get angry and take away some of your points.

Nice stack of tasty corn.

Building materials like stone, wood, and gold let you build buildings, which give you more stuff.

The bottom buildings are simple buildings, and do things like help feed your workers or give you technologies.  The top buildings are monuments, which are SUPER expensive and hard to build, but give you extra points at the end of the game for doing specific stuff.

Speaking of technolgies, you have them, I guess.  And you can upgrade them throughout the game.  They do things like get you extra corn every time you get corn. Or points when you build buildings.  Just some examples.  There are lots of things.

Technology tracks.

Then there's the mighty god tracks.  There are 3 gods, and as you gain favor with them they give you stuff or points at the end of each quarter of the game.  They are one of the main ways of scoring points in the game.

Sun god gets the tallest temple.  The Mayans are clearly playing favorites.

The other main way of scoring points involves the CRYSTAL SKULLS!!!!

Cute.

Not to be confused with this crystal skull, which used to contain vodka.

Vodka skull.  Not relevant to the game.  Very relevant to my mixed drinks.

 Just having crystal skulls in your possession is worth points at the end of the game, but a more efficient use of them is placing them on spaces of the blue spinny wheel.  As an offering to the gods, or something,  not only does it get you points but also gains you favor with the gods.  Up up up we go on the god track!

Tomb of sacrificed skulls.  Still cute.

The god track, then, plays a pretty central role in the game.  There are actions on the board that move you up the track directly, or you can take actions to get skulls to later place on the blue wheel which will move you up the god track, or you can build certain buildings which will reward you with moving up on the god track.  You get the idea.  It's important.
But there are so many different things to do, it's not like everyone is doing exactly the same thing.   The god track just seems to be a central point where many different strategies converge.

Oh, we're playing the expansion!  I forgot.  New things...
The expansion is called "Tribes and Prophecies"  because it adds 2 game mechanics:  Different tribes for players and...wait for it...something called prophecies.

A different tribe is given to each player at the start of the game.  Each tribes grants a player a special ability during the game that other players do not have access to.  They are pretty special.

Each tribe has their own unpronounceable name.

The prophecies are tiles that are laid out at the start of the game, letting players know that at certain periods during the game, taking certain actions will cost more than normal.  But accomplishing these actions will get you points.

For example, above, during a certain quarter of the game, getting wood from the green wheel requires the player PAY one wood first.  That's just mean.  But for every forest tile (the tiles with the wood picture on them that cover up the corn tiles, because beneath the lush forests are corn fields...) a player has at the end of the quarter, you get so many points.  And not having any makes you lose points.
But no fear!  The first quarter of the game has no catastrophes like above, so you can get ahead, and collect things that you know will be hard to get later.  So, for the bad no-good prophecy above, you could collect forest tiles before this prophecy comes to pass when there is no penalty to get the tiles.  That way you are prepared for later when the bad no-good prophecy hits.
 
The prophets tell you stuff for a reason.  Listen, and plan ahead, dummy.

Here's the board at the end of the game.  It looks empty, because if you time stuff right,  you pull all your workers on the last turn to take some last minute actions.  Leaving a worker on the board that can't do anything means you didn't plan well.  It makes you feel bad.

When I first bought this game, it was my favorite ever.  I won every game.  That doesn't happen anymore.  Jake wins every game.  He knows what he is doing.  I just like to spin the wheel.  Still love the game though.

Noooooo!!!! That's so sad!!!!

Do It Myself Board Game Table

This is my game table.  I built it with my hands, mostly.  I think it is pretty.  And useful.  Pretty useful.

Because let's face it: a lot of us are too old to sit on the floor to play games anymore.  Getting up is hard. My knees crack and my back hurts and sometimes I'm all "I can't get up" like in the Life Alert commercials.

That's why trees evolved into tables, right?
Here, I drew this just for you; it's how science works:

Totally factual evolutionary chart thing.

I suppose a regular ol' table would be fine, but where's the fun in that?  DIY projects are great for killing time.  And a fancy looking surface solely for board gaming increases board game nerd street cred by like, 1000 somethings.

That is why this had to be built.  It's a simple gaming table.  Actually, I just built a table-topper to sit on top of my existing table. Because building a table from the floor up would cost time and money that would be better spent on games and pie.
Also, I'm no carpenter.  I'm leave that to the guys on PBS.

But I did have the skills to build this simple, elegant yet functional tabletop.  Here's how it went down...

It all started with a table.

Too small.  Not felt-y.  Must make fancy.

Then, a piece of wood to go on top.  A bigger piece of wood.  A typical board game table size would be something like 4'x4' or 4'x6', because people like round numbers.  Mine was 45"x65" because I like numbers that end in 5's.
The wood is a simple piece of 3/4" thick OSB.  It's not too expensive (it was 20 bucks for the 4'x8' sheet) and was sturdy enough for my purposes.  Doesn't look great, but I'm covering it anyway.

OSB: Oh, so big.

The people at Home Depot were kind enough to cut the full sheet down to size for me.  So I didn't have to risk losing a finger or my nose.  My nose gets in the way of things a lot, so better safe than snout-less.

The final pieces of the puzzle are some fine fabrics.

The white stuff is some soft cotton stuff.  It was squishy and pretty cheap.  I wanted to use it as an underlayer to create a little extra pillbury doughboy squish underneath. Tee-hee.

The red stuff is felt.  But PREMIUM felt, from JoAnn's Fabrics.  The regular cheaper craft felt bunches up and balls up and stretches and doesn't last.  Gotta get the good stuff.

I got a nice dark red/burgundy color.  Reminds me of fancy poker tables.

It's also apparently good for hopscotch?

The felt and white cloth ran $30 (after a coupon, but JoAnn's always has coupons).

The the scarlet felt, in the boardgame room with the revolver.

Staple gun, set from "stun" to "kill."

So the plan was simple:  staple gun the white underlayer into the board, then staple the fancy felt layer over the top.

I started by draping the white fabric over the actual table.

Then I put the osb on top, folded the fabric over onto it, and stapled it up down the middle.  My staple gun was feeling a bit drowsy today, so I had to hammer in each staple to make sure it was flush with the board.

Then I staped the other side down as well. I made sure that I pulled everything tight, so there was no bunching.  You want a nice, flat, taut surface here.

For the edges, I trimmed off the excess fabric and threw some staples into the side of the board.  Not the prettiest edging, but this stuff is gonna get covered up anyway.  Again, I made sure everything was stretched super tight.

I had quite a bit of excess fabric trimmings.  And I don't like to waste things.  So...

DIY vestments. 

Then it was time for the nice stuff.  I repeated the process above with my lavish burgundy felt.

To finish off the edges here, instead of doing the trimming, which looks super tacky, I just folded the edges under.  Not the most elegant solution, but it was easy and didn't look half bad.

Flip it over...

The final product

I'm VERY happy with how this came out.  It's simple, but nice looking.  And it only took me about $50 and a couple of hours to put together.  Not bad...not bad at all.