The Best of Origins 2014 - Subdivision

This is the third (p)review in my Best of Origins 2014 series.

This is another one coming from Bezier Games Inc. They were also behind my favourite game of Origins, Castles of Mad King Ludwig. They even had deal at Origins where you could pre-order both and get a discount. 

Subdivision is a follow up to Suburbia, it's still a city based tile laying game but it's zoomed in from Suburbia. Here you are looking at one small subdivision of the city. To me it felt like Suburbia meets 7 Wonders and that was a very good thing.

It's interesting to note that Subdivision isn't from Ted Alspach, the designer of Suburbia but rather from Lucas Hedgren. As far as I can tell this is Lucas' first game. The art though, if it isn't obvious is from the same team.

Note that this (p)review is based on a prototype copy of the game that we did a demo of at Origins 2014. It was played with prototype components though the rules had been finalized at the time.

What is subdivision all about?

As noted above, Subdivision is Suburbia zoomed in. Each player receives their own board which represents a small subdivision of a city. The goal is to score the most points by filling your board with tiles that represent industrial, residential, commercial, civic and luxury zones. This is done while trying to balance various improvements like roads, parks, sidewalks, schools and lakes.

The board itself is a big hex and is two sided, with an 'easy side' and an 'advanced side.' We played on the easy side. On that hex are a bunch of coloured shapes with numbers in them, negative numbers. The numbers are the number of points you loose if you don't cover up that spot by the end of the game.

These coloured shapes, along with a die, tell you where you have to play each turn. The die is rolled each turn and you pick a tile from your hand and play it on a matching spot. 

A player's hand of tiles is where a lot of the strategy of the game comes from. You start off with a set of tiles based on the number of players. Each turn after you place a tile you pass your hand to the next player. You then get a new hand from the player on your opposite side. This is very much like 7 Wonders and the decision of what to keep and what to pass can be a difficult one.

There are five types of basic zone tiles and each of these is tied to a special upgrade. When you play a basic tile you then activate it and all of the tiles next to it. Each type of zone tile is tied to a specific upgrade and when activated you get to place that upgrade on the board. For example if you play a residential tile you get to play a school next to it. Schools score points at the end of the game but only if you have three school tiles stacked. This means you are going to have to activate at least three residential tiles next to that school. Other tiles lead to other upgrades. Lakes that score points, roads are important at end of game scoring where you score points for each tile that has a path, by road, back to the highway. Sidewalks score points for being next to a variety of different tiles and so on. The other bit that's neat about these upgrade tiles is that they also take up space and cover up those negative points and the decision where to put them is an important one.

Similar to Suburbia there are different stacks of tiles that you work through as you play and the game ends when the last stack runs out (there was probably a random game end tile, but we didn't use it for our demo). Subdivision also steals a mechanic from the Suburbia Inc. expansion. On the top of each pile there is a bonus tile. Every player who has done what is shown on the bonus tile gets the bonus. The tiles have things on them like having to have sets of tiles in certain configurations, having at least three lakes or having at least three different kinds of upgrades. The bonuses they give usually lets you activate your tiles (letting you place upgrades) or they give you money.

Money lets you break the rules and it worth points at the end of the game. At any time you can spend $2 to ignore the roll of the dice and place your next tile anywhere. In addition there is a set of trees on the map. During the game you can spend $2 to pave over these and use that spot to build. If you don't do that though that spot is worth +2 points at the end of the game.

The rulebook also includes seven special scenarios which give you different starting set ups. For example the "A River Runs Through your Board" set up has you start with a row of lake tiles dividing your board in half. Along with these there are also rules for playing solo. Not my thing but very cool to see.

My thoughts on Subdivision:

I really enjoyed this game. It is significantly quicker than Suburbia, only taking about an hour, maybe an hour and a half with an analysis paralysis prone player. It still gives you that city building feel though and scratched a very similar itch. 

One of the things that makes the game quicker is that there is no interaction between each player's board. There's no checking to see how many airports the other players have or trying to remember to collect your money when someone buys a residential area and you have the Housing Authority. Now that should mean there's less interaction between the players but that's not the case. Due to the tile drafting system, where you pass your tiles to the next player, I would say there's actually more interact in Subdivision than in Suburbia.

I really liked the way this game made me think. There didn't seem to be a one right way to play. The decision of what spot to cover, which upgrade you wanted, where that upgrade was  going and then what you are passing on to your opponent was fun and challenging at time. Now it did cause some analysis paralysis delays a few times, but nothing too serious. 

One of the things I never look forward to with Suburbia is explaining the game. That problem doesn't exist with this one. It's really simple to explain. the rules are only four pages long and two of those are showing off the game components and explaining all the bonus tiles. It really is simple to play, roll the die, play a tile and pass on the rest of your tiles. 

To me Suburbia is another Reese's game. You take Suburbia, one of my favourite games of all time and mix it with 7 Wonders which is quick and has a brilliant drafting mechanic and you get Subdivision. I can't wait for this one to come out. 

The Best of Origins 2014 - Star Realms

This is the second review in my Best of Origins 2014 series.

I probably rolled a little too low on my initiative roll for this review. I'm guessing most people who read this blog have already heard of Star Realms and have been trying to find a copy for the last month since White Wizard Games can't keep up with demand.

Well this review is for the rest of you, so that you can also become one of the many gamers trying to get your hands on a copy of Star Realms, because it is that good.

Star Realms was my first purchase of Origins. My wife and I did one demo game and I had bought a copy of this excellent deck builder before we finished our first game. I had no idea at the time that I was buying one of a very limited second printing that had just been released that day.

If I had known it was going to be so hard to find I would have brought multiple copies back with me. 

So what's the big deal?

Star Realms is a deck builder that has a lot in common with Ascension. Actually, if you know how to play one game it only takes minutes to explain the other one, they are that similar. The biggest difference between the two is that in Star Realms you attack the other players directly, where as in Ascension you are killing off monsters on the board for Honour (points). Personally I think Ascension meets Magic the Gathering is a pretty apt description of Star Realms.

You've heard the whole peanut butter and chocolate thing; well Ascension is the peanut butter, Magic is the chocolate and Star Realms is the amazing thing you get when you combine them. 

Okay, how do you play?

Like most deck builders players get a starting deck of crappy cards that they use to buy better cards that are then used to buy even better cards and build an even better deck. In this particular game you get eight Scouts which provide 1 Trade each and two Vipers that provide 2 Combat. You use Trade to buy things and Combat to attack the other player. You win by removing all of the opponents Authority.

In the center of the play area (or on your snazzy official Star Realms play mat, available at an extra cost, if you can find them), you lay out five cards which becomes the Trade row. These are the cards you can buy with your Trade points. There are also Explorers, which are ships that are always available to buy (much like the Mystics and Heavy Infantry in Ascension). Each player starts with 50 Authority. The game comes with cards to track these. 

Each turn you will draw five cards and play them in the order of your choosing. The cards with Trade you use to buy new cards by paying the cost in the top right and then putting the bought card into your discard pile. The cards with Combat you use to attack your opponent. The cards you can buy are a mix of ships and bases that come from four different factions. Ships are just like the basic cards and give you Trade, Combat or sometimes both. Some even give you Authority letting you heal. Bases are interesting: they stay in play after used and provide an ongoing bonus. In addition a player can choose to attack another player's Base instead of attacking the player directly. Lastly there are Outposts, these are special bases that must be attacked before attacking another base or a player directly.

The most interesting thing about this system is the way the different cards work together. Each card has a faction ability. This can only be used when you play a second card with that faction symbol on it (or have a Base in play of that faction). What this means is that the game really rewards players for sticking to a low number of factions. While a deck with each faction is playable, I've yet to see one win vs. a deck that is more specialized. 

Each faction has it's own specialty and style of play. The Trade Federation has the most healing abilities. The Biotics are about hand management and drawing extra cards. The Star Empire is all about Combat. The Machine Cult has a ton of Bases and has lots of deck management cards.

Speaking of deck management. One of the card abilities is the Trash ability. This lets you toss the card with the Trash ability out of the game to get a one time benefit. Use of these abilities at the right time is a big part of the strategy of Star Realms. For example the Explorer cards mentioned above, give you 2 Trade, so they are much better than your Scouts but they aren't really all that great compared to the ships from the deck. They have a Trash ability though that provides 2 Combat. This can be extremely useful when you just need a couple more points to take out that Outpost your opponent played last turn.

One last note on number of players: the base game only includes enough cards to play 2 players. That said, there are rules included for playing with up to 6 players. The thing is that you will need a deck for each pair of players. 

Why do I like it so much (more than Ascension)?

I think that the direct confrontation makes a big difference here. I think it's one of the things that makes Marvel Dice Masters more fun than Quarriors! for me. I just enjoy beating the snot out of my opponent over earning a bunch of 'honour.'

The way the cards combo together and the fact the game rewards limiting yourself to a reduced number of factions adds a very different feel to the game. It's no longer: buy the most expensive card out there. It feels more like you are building an engine, and I dig engine building games.

I can't not mention the price: Ascension = $40, Star Realms = $15

I just really dig this game. It's cheap, it's fun, it's easy to teach and it scratches an itch for me that Ascension just doesn't. If you enjoy deck builders at all I have to recommend this one. It's one of the best out there. There is one problem though: It's not currently out there. I hear they are working on a third printing though, so just keep your pants on. It's good, but it's not $60 on Amazon good.

A final note about Ascension,

I don't want this post to come off as overly harsh on Ascension. I still love me some Ascension. It's truly a great game. If I have four players I would actually rather play Ascension than Star Reams. Star Realms hasn't "Jones Theoried" Ascension for me or anything like that. I still strongly recommend the game. Just right now I like Star Realms more. :D

The best of Origins 2014 - Castles of Mad King Ludwig

I'm not sure how many of these blog posts I will actually do, but I wanted to do up at least a couple posts based on the awesome games I got to try while I was at Origins 2014 a couple weeks back. 

While there was an amazing amount of great gaming and I think I played more games in that one weekend than I did most of last year, these articles will be about the best of what I got to try.

I'm starting with the best of the best. Castles of Mad King Ludwig was the best new game I got to play at Origins. It's from Ted Alspach and released by Bezier Games, Inc. 

My favourite game from Ted is Suburbia and Castles of Mad King Ludwig is very similar to it. Actually I could see some people even saying that it's a re-theme of Suburbia.

Note: all of the following is based on a single play of a preview copy of the game. The game was taught by one of the demo staff at Origins so I cannot talk to how well the instructions are written. 

Gameplay overview:

Castles of Mad King Ludwig has each player competing to make the best castle. Each player starts off with just an entrance hall and they build off of it using a wide variety of room types in a wide variety of shapes.

Each turn, one player is the master builder (not positive that was the proper term, it was something like that). They start their turn by drawing new room tiles to fill the market. Which type of tiles (aka which room shapes) are added is determined by draws from a deck of room cards. Once the market is filled, the master builder then gets to set the price on each piece. This is the most strategic part of the game. 

For those who have played Suburbia: imagine that instead of just having a row of things to buy with the most expensive stuff at one end and free stuff at the other, each turn one of the players got to re-arrange this market into whatever order they wanted. Setting the price for each piece of property. That's what the master builder does each turn in Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

One of the reasons this is so strategic is that, after setting the prices, the other players then get to buy first. In addition when they buy a piece the money they spend goes to the master builder. The master builder builds last and whatever they spend goes to the bank. This makes for a very internalized player dependent economy.  

When you buy a room you add it to the growing castle in front of you. What's really interesting here is the way all the pieces are shaped. I don't think I've ever played a tile game before where the tiles didn't line up in neat rows and columns. It takes a bit to get used to. As tiles are played they score. Each tile scores a basic value printed in the top right corner of the card. In addition every tile can earn bonus points for tiles placed adjacent to them. This varies widely by room but generally you get bonuses for putting a certain size, shape or colour of room next to the ones you've already placed. For example the first large hall I placed (purple) was worth 1 point, but it was worth 4 more points for every bedroom (blue) room I placed adjacent to it.

In addition to getting points for making room combos you are also trying to 'finish' rooms. You do this by attaching something to each and every exit from a room, so that every exit leads somewhere. When you do this you get a bonus based on the type of room you closed off. These bonuses ranges from getting more money, to being able to determine what room types come up next. If I remember correctly there are seven different room types each with it's own distinct bonus.

There are also a few special tiles that are always available from a central supply (technically you can run out if all of them are bought): corridors and stairs. Corridors are just long and really long straight rooms with lots of doors that seem to be mostly used to give you more room to build. Stairs are really neat: Once you build a set of stairs you can start building dungeon rooms onto your castle. These are the black rooms and for every two you complete you get to pick any one of the other rewards.

All of this stuff scores you points, which you track on a score board above the market. The cards you draw to determine which rooms to pull when filling the market work as the game timer. When they run out the game ends. Similar to Suburbia there are objectives in the game. Each player has a hidden objective and there are some public ones one the main board. A player can also get more objectives during the game by completing a specific type of room. These score points at the end of the game and are things like: "Most bedrooms", "Least circular rooms", "Biggest Dungeon" etc. You add these bonus points to the scores from the game and the player with the most points wins.

So how was castle building?

I really like Suburbia. It's one of my favourite games at the moment. I love the way that everything interacts and the way what initially feels like a multi-player solitaire game actually has a really good bit of interaction. Well Castles of Mad King Ludwig kicks that up a notch. The whole master builder sets the price and then gets paid by the other characters thing is brilliant. It's really what makes this game. It is so hard to decide how to set those prices. For Example: you know that "most circles" is a public objective so do you put the price really high in hopes that someone buys it to give you money for next turn, or do you put it really low so that someone buys that instead of that square bedroom you really want? 

I found the theme of Castles of Mad King Ludwig much more engaging than city building. I love Sim City and all but I also really dig Dungeon Keeper. Building an interesting castle is just more fun than placing some parks next to an office building. Plus this game has a fantasy theme that really comes out once you start seeing some of the underground dungeon tiles. 

Despite being a prototype I really liked the look of the game. The rooms are very detailed and interesting with lots of cool bits to look at. What could have just been a yellow square is instead a wine cellar filled with barrels. While I find the art in Suburbia very functional, it's not all that pretty. And while I wouldn't call this pretty, it is very much a step up.

I really don't have much negative to say about the game. It was really good. The only two problems I can see with it is that the master builder phase is very prone to Analysis Paralysis and the game takes up a lot of table space.

I can't wait for this game to come out, It was the best game I got to try at Origins 2014. I was going to pre-order right then and there after our demo, until they told us that the free shipping deal didn't apply to Canada. So as it stands I will be buying this as soon as I can get it locally. If you like Suburbia I can't see you not liking this. If you think building a fantasy castle is cooler than building a city, I think Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a no brainier. Even if you've never played or didn't like Suburbia I suggest checking this game out. It's solid. 

Some thoughts on my first big con: Origins 2014

Two weekends ago I attended my first big gaming convention: Origins Game Fair in Columbus Ohio.

My wife and I have been talking about attending a con for years now. Many years. We've always put it off for one reason or another. Our excuse used to be that we didn't have Passports so couldn't cross the border anymore (pre-911 you could get across with a birth certificate). 

This past year we got our passports and no longer had an excuse. My wife gave me the option of going to either Origins or GenCon. Now I know a bunch of you are probably moaning and yelling at your monitors right now telling me I made the wrong choice. I don't think that I did.

In preparation for the trip I asked the awesome Google Plus gaming community what they thought of each con and received a ton of feedback. The consensus was that Origins was much more laid back, relaxed, spaced out and better for just chilling with other gamers and gaming. That was exactly what I wanted. I've heard stories about how awesome GenCon is. How it's The Big Deal. I also heard how busy it was and how much it cost to attend. So we I decided on Origins and I'm glad I did.

Initial thoughts:

Holy cow this thing is big! This is supposed to be the smaller con, isn't it? I wouldn't call this small at all. We were there five days and on the fifth day we were still finding stuff that we didn't even know existed. At one point I wandered into a huge hall that was filled with hundreds of Magic The Gathering Players. One of the busiest halls of the show and we had no idea it was there until our last afternoon when we were trying to find coffee (for some reason getting a coffee after 2pm in Columbus is a damn hard thing to do).

And this is the small con? GenCon is busier? No thanks.

This goes with the last one: there's no way you can do ALL THE THINGS. I wanted to, I really did, but it just didn't happen. I was there for five days and didn't play a single RPG. That was one of the things that was high on my Origins to do list and I never got around to it.

The auction: missed it. Tracey Hickman's World-building seminar: I think I was still in the 2nd row of the Exhibit Hall when that hit. The Munchkin Tavern: didn't even know it was there until I got home and saw other people posting on facebook.

It was all very overwhelming. At the same time though it wasn't overbearing. I never felt rushed. I never felt panicked. I never actually felt like I was missing anything. That's because I was finding lots of cool stuff to do, I was gaming and I was having a great time. Sure I didn't get to see it all but what I did see I really liked.

Awesome board games:

The main thing my wife and I did while at Origins was try new games. That was one of my main goals (other than hitting Games on Deman) and one that I feel we accomplished. This was not only a great opportunity to try before I buy for some games I've been on the fence about, but it was also a chance to check out new stuff that isn't even out yet. The best part to me was that there were people all over the place excited to teach you their game. As one of the main 'game teachers' in our local group, this was a relaxing break. 

I think I'm going to do a separate best of Origins post where I get into more details about the best games I saw and played at the event. For now, here's some highlights.

Prototype of Castles of the Mad King Ludwig

The most fun game of the entire weekend was Castles of the Mad King Ludwig from Bezier Games. This is the latest from Ted Alspach who makes my current top game, Suburbia. It was a fantastic game, much quicker and more fun and thematic than Suburbia.

Speaking of Suburbia we also got to try SUBdivision. This one was like Suburbia meets 7-Wonders and was extremely fast while still being very strategic. 

Our first day at origins and our first trip into the Exhibit Hall A. we got grabbed by the designer and told we had to try Star Realms. This was a great two player deck builder that had some obvious Magic the Gathering influences. It's only $15 and became my first official purchase of Origins. Being taught games by the people who designed them was pretty awesome. Leaning a new game is great. Learning a new game from the people that created it is better. Even better is beating them at that game. I had to pick up a copy of Fleet for this reason; I destroyed Matt Riddle in our demo game.

There were games everywhere. Just sitting out by the registration area were copies of Monster Factory. After playing a couple rounds with my wife, we decided to pick up a copy to bring home to the kids (with full intention of borrowing it to play with adults at some later date). 

Gravwell went on my to buy list after doing a demo.

Mayfair games had a huge demo area and we tried out The Witches: A Discworld Game, Caverna, Hot Tin Roof, Star Trek: Catan, Mad City and Station Master. For each game you played you got a banner representing the usual Catan resources. Eventually we collected a full set and I took home a copy of Station Master at half price.

Iello taught us how to play a bunch of kids games like The Hare and the Tortoise, Fun Farm and Three Little Pigs. A great dude from Cryptozoic showed up how Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension works and taught us their unique deck building system through their soon to be released The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Deck-Building Game. 

Even with all of these and some I haven't listed, there was still plenty more I wanted to try and we just didn't get to. There were so many great games!

Really cool miniatures:

Just one of the amazing miniature gaming tables at Origins

There was an entire hall dedicated to miniature gaming. This was a hall I walked through and drooled at the huge amount of tables and wide variety of games. The miniatures were great, the scenery was breathtaking the games looked like a ton of fun. 

Sadly I didn't actually get to try any of them. I had planned to learn Zombiecide, Rivet Wars and maybe even Infinity and I did none of that. I did get some great pictures though :)

Other awesome stuff:

My Haversack

There was a whole ton of other cool stuff to see other than just board games. There were RPGs all over the place. Most major games had entire rooms dedicated to them. There was a Shadowrun room and a Pathfinder Room. There was an entire room dedicated to D6 Star Wars. There was also the Games on Demand room that I expected to spend way more time in. Next year.

There were authors selling their new books. Cosplay booths selling all kinds of different gear (a ton of Steampunk and LARP boffers). There were more dice than I could count and so much lead you could sink a ship.  

Pretty much all the major game companies were there as well as some of the biggest online stores. What I really liked finding through were the smaller independent companies. I found some great deals on some scenery, picked up a potion bottle piece of cosplay, grabbed a bag full of dice for use in Mobile Frame Zero and the last day my wife bought me a Handy Haversack to carry all this stuff in.

Then there was the food. Such good food. I took some time to write about that over on my food blog: Big Dude Likes Food so I won't get into details here. I do have one tip: leave the convention center and cross the street. It's amazing how much awesome is right there within a block.

Some lessons learned:

I already mentioned the main one: you can't do everything. So don't worry about it. One of the good discussions I had with one of the people demoing games was about how to handle Origins. His suggestion stuck with me and is the way we ended up going about things and the way I will do things in the future:

I will never buy one of these again.

Get the guides and event listings and figure out the one thing you must do. The thing that to gets you to say: "I went to Origins and got to do X" schedule your weekend around that. Buy an advance pass, schedule it and make sure you do it. Then make a list of the one thing you want to do each day you are there. Try to do that for sure. Plan to spend one day in the Exhibit hall shopping and buying games and nothing else. It will take you a whole day. Other than that, go with the flow.

The biggest mistake my wife and I made was buying badges for the Board Room. This was a complete and total waste of $40. We didn't play a single game in the Board Room. Not one. We were there five days and never used those badges once. There was no reason to. Why would I go to an area where I have to borrow a game and find people to play it with? As well as likely have to teach myself the game before I can play it. This had no appeal to me. 

I get that for some people this is an awesome chance to play games with new people, to actually get games they love to the table or whatever. For me though, I do that almost every weekend through Windsor Gaming Resource Events. I can play with strangers at least twice a month. I didn't need to go to Origins to do this.

Final thoughts:

I loved it. I really loved it. I had a way better time then I ever thought I would. It was just so much fun. There was so much to do and I didn't do half of what I wanted to do. It was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I will be going back. Origins totally gets a: Thumbs Up!