3/21/07
Once again we were 8 which is proving to be a
rather consistent number. So, we split into two tables of 4.
James, Kris, Charlie and Steve took on the prototype table for two new designs.
Kris Prototype
Brent Prototype
Clippers
Ted, Dave, Tony and Travis took on the other table
Rocketville
Here is Dave's post on the game. I was not as nearly as acceptable.
This past Wednesday the Appalachian Gamers met and due to the fact that
we had 8 players that evening we split into two groups. One group
played a couple of prototypes while four of us set up on a separate
table. The first game to hit our table was the infamous Rocketville
from Avalon Hill!
Why did we want to play Rocketville, you may ask? Were we sadistic? Do
we like playing bad games? Actually the truth is that none of us had
ever played the game and we wanted to see what all the grousing was
about and make our own evaluation of the game.
While the others punched the game, I read the rules out loud while
pointing out things on the board. The rules are only 4 pages (really 2
1/2 of actual rules to play the game...the rest is typical stuff like
game contents and credits.) There were a few questions from the others
and we quickly figured out the answers and started the game. We decided
to play with the optional Endorsers rules/cards since the game was
simple enough that this would hardly add too much complexity. I
personally wonder why this is even optional since it adds a very minor
twist to the game. I had the honor of being the first player and placed
the rocket.
The game is essentially an area control game with some card/hand
management. The players are competing for spots on the board that are
split into six neighborhoods (don't hold me to accuracy here) by
playing cards from their hand. The cards have an assigned value that
can be modified by the square being contested and the player with the
highest card wins. Wining can give bonuses to popularity (which is how
the game is scored), extra cards, robot cards which give bonuses for
meeting certain criteria and the winning player also controls the
rocket's next move. In lieu of playing a value card the player can play
their Campaign Planning card which allows them to draw another platform
card (the valued cards.) On certain squares players can also lose
popularity given certain circumstances.
The game is easy to grasp and plays very quickly. There is obviously a
rather large luck factor in the game but this can be mitigated by
proper hand management. A strategy used by the eventual winner was to
only win as many squares as needed to get 1st or 2nd place in a
neighborhood and pull extra cards on unneeded squares, in order to
maximize his card play and turn cards over as quickly as possible. All
said the game took about 45 minutes including punching the game and
reading rules.
So, what did we think? The consensus was that the game was not nearly
as bad as what we had been led to believe. We have certainly played
worse games. The problem seems to be that gamers had high expectations
based upon the game's pedigree (the creator of Robo Rally and
MTG...along with the Avalon Hill name) and were let down by the final
product. That and a $40 price tag when the game first came out led to
some very negative feelings it seems. Had I paid $40 for this game I
would have been pissed for sure.
All said, I wouldn't mind taking another trip to Rocketville. Its a
light game and with the right people it can be fun. We all got some
enjoyment out of trumping someone's high card or pulling off a win in a
square using a low card. And sometimes that's ok, just having fun.
Big Kini
Last Wednesday at the weekly Appalachian Gamers session Big Kini made
its first appearance. The players were Ted, Tony, Travis and me. Only
Ted had played before so he explained the rules while we set out the
tiles and separated the cubes in preparation for play.
To start play, we each selected our atoll of choice and prepared to get
down to business. The first order of business for the other three
players was to have babies while I earned money off my tobacco
plantation and immediately expanded to a new tile. I was hoping to find
additional expansion spaces but I happened to pick a real dud of an
atoll. My inability to create more settlers would prove to be my
undoing.
After creating additional settlers the other players started
explorations of their own. To say the finds were underwhelming would be
an understatement. Each of the first atolls turned up by each player
turned out to be rather poor...either poor plantations, lack of
expansions slots or a combination of the two prevailed. Play continued
with each of us performing the variety of actions. Nothing particularly
exciting happened because each of us really concentrated on building
within our own areas and nominating settlers to the position of Bay
Baron in order to gain maximum points.
About midway through the game Ted made the first move into enemy
territory. He moved a settler onto one of Travis' atolls in order to
have access to additional expansion slots. It seemed aggressive at the
time but turned out not to be so as Ted never tried to take control of
the entire atoll but rather concentrated on expanding and also earning
several sets of shells.
I haven't mentioned much about Tony because he was quietly building up
his own territory. As I said earlier, not much exciting was going on!
The game finally ended when we reached round twelve. There was one tile
that was left unexplored because nobody had the resources to reach it
before game's end. The final scores were:
Travis 49
Tony 44
Ted 43
Me 42
I really do think my inability to breed early cost me late in the game.
Without settlers you can't expand efficiently, you lose out on the
ability to take advantage of the 2x actions and you have to waste turns
doing maintenance/shifting of cubes at times. If I were to play again I
would certainly do things differently.
With that said, I don't think Big Kini will be hitting the table again
any time soon. I, for one, found the game to be rather busy. In many
games I can usually get a feel for who is doing well and who isn't. I
didn't really get that feeling in this game. Sure, I could have sat
there for 5 minutes and added up running scores in my head but I don't
enjoy doing that and wouldn't want to waste everyone's time! Besides,
that's not my idea of fun. The other players had similar feelings.
We were also disappointed by the lack of conflict. We could have been
more aggressive but with an inability to easily determine who was doing
well and who was not it made engaging in conflict pointless as far as
we were concerned. It was much easier for us to simply concentrate on
our own areas and maximize our holdings as best we could.
There is certainly a game here but it wasn't one that I really enjoyed enough to play again any time soon.
Timbouctou
Next we took on the caravan to this famous city. Goods began to
fly off the camels as bad decisions were made. Tony managed to
only loose 4 goods and win the game handily.
Dracheninsel
Time for a light take that game. Early in the game Travis smacked
Dave and stole all the treasure booty from a haul. This made
Travis the early leader. One shot to take him down was a duel
between Travis and me in the end. I tried my best but lost.
Captain Wackelpudding
Time for some late night light silliness. Actually, this one
proved to be a huge hit at that hour of the evening.. We hit a
card that required us to just load the boat until something fell.
This proved to be the end game as most of the pieces hit the
boat. By the time is fell there was one big looser. I think
it was Travis. Anyway, we laughed a lot which took us to
the next silly game.
Villa Palleti
We began stacking pillars and did not get that far as I managed to crash the third level. Still fun.
Appalachian Gamers
Charleston, WV
