On the Tabletop: OK Play

December 3, 2017Ruel

Welcome to On the Tabletop, a series of board game overviews featuring my thoughts on the latest tabletop products.

While the board game craze continues to grow by leaps and bounds, for most of us the local Barnes & Noble or Target is the closest we’ll get to having a FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store). With the recent news that Barnes & Noble will be cutting down on its game section, Target is probably most people’s initial contact with our hobby.

Over the summer Target announced over 50 games exclusively sold in its stores. Most are gateway or partygames, but they’re still infinitely better than the standard Monopoly, Sorry!, and the rest of the tired classics. Games like Machi Koro: Bright Lights, Big City and Evolution: The Beginning were two of the first Target-exclusive games and I recently scored one of the new wave of Target games: OK Play.

OK Play is a cleverly produced Connect-Four-style game that lives up to its claim that it can be learned in seconds. On your turn you place one of your tiles on the table; a tile must be flush against another tile (no corner-to-corner placement, just like in Carcassonne). If you run out of tiles, then take one of your already-placed tiles and move it elsewhere.

That’s it. Easy, right? The first player to connect five of their tiles in a row wins.

OK Play is a fast filler and I liked the familiarity of the connect-five goal along with the tile-laying mechanism. The game gets interesting once you’ve used all of your tiles and must move one of your already placed tiles.

Best of all, it’s packaged in an easy-to-carry case that can be attached to your gaming bag and easily transported during your next trip.

One quibble: colorblind players may have trouble with the tiles. I suffer from red/green colorblindness and when I played my orange tiles, at certain angles they blended in with the green tiles.

A friendly reminder to game companies and designers, it’s such a simple fix: use a unique icon for each color, like Ticket to Ride. That’s all. This one little change will increase your game’s accessibility (and audience) by making it easier for colorblind players to play your game.

Disclosure: Thanks to Bananagrams (the distributor for Big Potato Games) for this copy of OK Play.

Kingdom Builder: When Insomnia Pays Off

December 1, 2017Ruel

I couldn’t fall asleep Wednesday night so I started reading my Twitter feed when I came across a link to an Amazon deal. It was for Kingdom Builder, an abstract game that I’d first played over a year ago. I remembered liking it then and for less than $9, I couldn’t resist. I bought it then fell asleep about an hour later.

When I woke up it felt like a dream. Did I really buy a Spiel des Jahres winner for less than the cost of a meal? I re-checked my account and, sure enough, it was already on its way.

Today it showed up at the front door and after punching out the bits and reviewing the rules, I was ready to play. But first, dinner with my wife at our favorite local Thai restaurant. When we got home I wanted to see if the game was as good as I remembered.

It was!

Kingdom Builder is a terrific gateway game, with excellent components and an easy-to-learn ruleset. Players are trying to build the most valuable kingdom by laying settlements throughout the land. The simple turns make for a quick game: draw a card that determines your placement, then do any additional actions you’ve unlocked during the game.

It’s not a brain burner, but it does force you to plan carefully, especially during your first few moves. Thanks to its handful of different scoring rules and extra interlocking game board pieces, there’s a lot of variability since you won’t be trying to score in the same way and the board will be different each time.

This was Donald X. Vaccarino’s follow-up to Dominion and while Kingdom Builder didn’t set the gaming world on fire like Dominion, it’s still worthy of being on any gamer’s shelf. Especially when its price is a single digit.

Riverside Startup Week Highlights Local Entrepreneurs

September 25, 2017Ruel

When it was time to name his company’s first product, recent University of California at Riverside graduate and Nex Move Games co-founder Mark Gilpatrick thought back to his travels abroad.

“In Middle Eastern cultures you’ll see people playing games like backgammon all day,” he said. “We wanted to reference this and we found the name Kumasi, which was a village that I backpacked through when I traveled through Ghana.”

Gilpatrick and Nex Move Games are part of ExCITE, a collaboration between business leaders, UCR, and the city and county of Riverside. ExCITE was founded to accelerate startup companies in Riverside, with the focus being on development of advanced technologies to create high technology jobs.

ExCITE is among the participants at this week’s inaugural Riverside Startup Week, a free, five-day event featuring local entrepreneurs, keynote speakers, and demonstrations. In addition to learning from CEOs, inventors, and investors of companies such as ESRI, Airbnb, Uber, and iRobot, attendees will also benefit from mentoring and networking opportunities.

“During Startup week, my interns and I will take advantage of the different modules that are available,” Gilpatrick said. “We all learn something and bring it back to help develop the company.”

According to Steve Massa, Economic Development Coordinator for the City of Riverside and one of the organizers of the event, “This regional event will allow all Inland Southern California entrepreneurs to come together and learn how to pitch to investors, build an MVP (minimal viable product), monetize their apps, and source new team members for their startup,find talent from nontraditional channels.”

Massa noted that Riverside ranked #13 in Kauffman’s Startup Activity Index in 2017, moving up five spots from the previous year. Entrepreneur Magazine also recognized Riverside as a top city for minority entrepreneurs.

“The ecosystem we are building fosters mentorship and increases investment opportunities for entrepreneurs who are committed to building and scaling businesses in our region,” he said.

Riverside Startup Week joins more than 600 other Startup Weeks around the world to foster the growth of the entrepreneurial community.

“ExCITE and Epic [Entrepreneurial Proof of Concept and Innovation Center at UCR] are awesome and led by some talented people that have a lot of faith in the Riverside community,” Gilpatrick said. “People like Taj [Ahmad Eldridge], and Mark Leibowitz give us invaluable advice. It’s a great community to be a part of. They’ve taken a well-rounded approach to guiding me and developing my company.”

For more information on Startup Week, visit https://riverside.startupweek.co/

Challenge Completed

September 11, 2017Ruel

Over on boardgamegeek.com they run a 10×10 challenge, in which participants attempt to play 10 different games at least 10 times each during the year. I did it last year and like the Lakers winning championships back in the day, I repeated the feat this year.

Here’s are quick thoughts on the 10 games on my list. Thanks to my wife, nephew and niece, and regular gaming buddies (two on Twitter: Daryl and Oscar) for helping me finish my list.

Santorini. One of my favorite abstract games ever. The game is ridiculously easy to learn: on your turn you move to any adjacent square, then you build on any adjacent square; to win, you must move up to the third level of any building. That’s it. It has surprising depth and lots of replayability due to its God Power cards, which add new moves, abilities, and/or win conditions for each player. Simply brilliant. (25 plays)

Mint Works. Everyone I’ve played Mint Works with has loved it. It’s a stripped-down-to-basics worker placement game that fits inside an Altoids tin. Games take no longer than 15 minutes, but it always manages to satisfy that worker placement itch. (10 plays)

Karuba. This was an insta-hit with my wife and our extended family of gamers. The tile call-outs reminds me of bingo, while the puzzle-like game play is always a blast, as each player tries to guide their adventurer to their temples while scooping up gems. (10 plays)

Onitama. Another abstract that gets bonus points for its terrific, road-trip-friendly packaging. While Santorini provides more depth and replayability, Onitama is even easier to learn: play a card and move any of your pieces according to the card’s directions while trying to capture your opponent’s master pawn or moving your master pawn to your opponent’s side. It plays faster than Santorini and I’m happy that both are in the Gaviola Game Library. (18 plays)

Red7. Any fan of card games should give Red7 a try. It’s a quick filler-type game, but has lots of interesting decisions throughout a game, thanks to its unique card play. Each card can be used in multiple ways so you’re always trying to find just the right card to play on your turn. The win condition is simple: be the last person standing. (17 plays)

Tiny Epic Quest. I love the Tiny Epic series of games. Scott Almes and Gamelyn Games manage to pack a lot of game into small boxes and Tiny Epic Quest is the best of the lot. I enjoy the puzzle-like nature of the Day Phase as you try to complete Movement Quests, but it’s the dice-chucking, push-your-luck Night Phase to complete Treasure Quests that’s an absolute blast. (28 plays)

Guess Who? My wife and I took a weekend cruise to Mexico earlier this year and the ship had a lounge that had a few shelves of board games. Unfortunately, it was multiple copies of chess, checkers, Connect Four, and Guess Who?. Thankfully, we were too busy chillaxing and enjoying the trip to care about how shoddy the selection was. We did, however, play 10 straight games of Guess Who?, so at least I was able to get my board game fix. (10 plays)

Tiny Epic Galaxies. No surprise here: I played another Tiny Epic game 10 times this year. This was my favorite in the series until I got Tiny Epic Quest. Galaxies is a lot of dice chucking, which always makes me happy. The solo game is fun (although TEQ has also supplanted it as my favorite of the series) and the Beyond the Black expansion added some nice touches to it, including new ships and abilities, and set collection and push-your-luck mechanisms. (14 plays)

Imperial Settlers. I’m not sure what I expected with Imperial Settlers, but I heard a lot of good things about it and won an auction for it last year. I like the civilization building aspect, along with card drafting. As the game progresses it becomes a good brain-burning exercise as you try to squeeze as much as you can out of each of your cards. (16 plays)

Viticulture Essential Edition. I lucked out last year and found a BGG user who had a brand new copy for half price. Not sure why I waited until this year to play it, but it was love at first play; the theme and mechanisms blend in so well together. It’s a classic of the worker placement genre and easily makes it into my Top Five Games Ever. When I added the Tuscany Essential expansion a few months later, it took the game to a whole new level. (36 plays)

San Diego Comic Con 2017: Conival

July 22, 2017Ruel

I got to spend some quality time at Conival, the big bash hosted by Legendary Entertainment’s Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, and Alpha. The lounge was outside on the Marina Terrace behind the Marriott and it was an ideal location overlooking the water.

Even though San Diego is known for its mild weather, it can still be pretty tough being in the sun all day and thankfully there were plenty of shaded areas, misters, and two huge fans to keep everybody cool.

I loved that Conival was outside: it made for a nice change after being engulfed by the sweaty masses inside the convention center. And what better way to enjoy the great outdoors than by playing board games?

My friends Marlon and Julla met me at the lounge and we played FUSE and Wits and Wagers. We shared a loss and a victory in FUSE and were awarded some terrific freebies: books and a book bag.

In Wits and Wagers I eeked out a single-point victory, thanks to the final question, which couldn’t have been more perfect for the setting: “What year did Superman first appear in comics?”

While you Google the answer to that (here, I’ll help you), I’m going back to the con for more gaming and what-not.

San Diego Comic Con 2017: The Story So Far

July 21, 2017Ruel

Wednesday (Preview Night) and Thursday at SDCC ’17 were fantastic. I’ve met some people on my Must Meet List and I was fortunate to connect with friends from back home and an old friend from across the country.

(Pictured above: the cutest FULLY WORKING mini land speeder outside the convention center. Seriously, just stop the con now. That was the best thing ever.)

Crowds tire me a lot more now than when I was a younger man, but like so many of my fellow attendees I feed off the energy of the crowd. It’s fun being among so many fans of so many different geekdoms. Admittedly I’m not up to date on all of the latest trends (still haven’t seen Rick & Morty, despite hearing how great it is from everyone I know), but I dig seeing everyone’s respective obsessions.

While the first day and a half were spent exploring all the different nooks and crannies of the main exhibit hall, I also managed to briefly check out the Conival put on by Nerdist and Geek & Sundry. I’ll be revisiting it later today and will post another report soon.

I also checked out the board games area on the mezzanine, where my buddy Oscar and I got to play the new Potion Explosion expansion, The Fifth Ingredient. CMON demo-er Kimberly explained the changes and we got into a game, which was a blast (fans of the game will get that pun, ha!).

To be continued. If you’re here and want to meet up to play a game, tweet me!

Humans of the Tabletop: June 12, 2017

June 12, 2017Ruel

Inspired by Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York, I present Humans of the Tabletop, an ongoing series about the people I’ve played games with.

“I try to take simple board games or card games and make them into P.E. games. The more fun the kids are having, the more engaged and more active they are. My colleagues would use a lot of the games I made up. They nominated me for P.E. teacher of the year and I won.”

Challenge Completed: Every Night Is Game Night

June 8, 2017Ruel

I completed my Every Night Is Game Night: My Daily Play & Blog Challenge for May!

It took me a few extra days into June to finish, but it was a fun experience sharing my thoughts on the games I played during the month. Thanks again for reading and for chatting with me on Twitter.

Here’s what I played and blogged about in May:

Every Night Is Game Night: Cubist

June 7, 2017Ruel

Technically, my Every Night Is Game Night: My Daily Play & Blog Challenge is over, but I missed a few days so I’m writing about other games I played during May. This is post no. 31, so consider my quest completed. What are you playing these days? Tweet me and let me know!

I’d heard good things about Cubist, but didn’t really know what to expect. I knew it was some kind of dice allocation and puzzle game, but that was it. One of the guys at my Thursday night group had Kickstarted it, so I finally got a chance to play it. After a few turns, I knew my wife would like it, so I made sure to add it to my Amazon wish list.

Players are architects building art installations, using their rolled dice to complete the works featured on the community cards. The first one to complete the card collects it and earns the victory points listed. There is also a museum card that all players contribute dice to and they’ll score points there, too.

Dice placement rules are simple to learn: you may place dice adjacent to each other if they are one more or one less. You may place dice on top of each other if they are of equal value. So, place a 2 next to a 3 or stack a 1 on top of a 1, etc. You place the dice on your “work room” (your player mat), then remove the dice when you’ve completed an installation.

Turns go quickly and I loved the theme. There’s a nice way to mitigate bad rolls, in the form of artist cards that you can claim for a special action.

After I played Sagrada I was asked if it replaced Cubist. There are similar features (dice allocation, special powers, and a puzzle-like mechanism) and while I lean toward Sagrada as the better game, I enjoyed both equally. Sagrada might be easier to pick up for new gamers, but it fails in the accessibility department (colorblind players may have trouble with it).

Cubist, on the other hand, has the cool three-dimensional element to its puzzle, as you try to complete your works and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s a solid game that I hope to see on the tabletop again soon.

Every Night Is Game Night: Dragon Run

June 6, 2017Ruel

Technically, my Every Night Is Game Night: My Daily Play & Blog Challenge is over, but I missed a few days so I’m writing about other games I played during May. This is post no. 30, so I’ll write one more and consider my quest completed. What are you playing these days? Tweet me and let me know!

Dragon Run has a special spot in my gaming heart: it was the first game I played with my current gaming group nearly two years ago. We played a five-player game and two of us still attend the game night weekly, while the others stopped showing up due to relocation and new work schedules.

Last year around my one-year anniversary of being a part of the group I asked the owner of the game to bring it in. It was fun revisiting a blast from the past, especially with one of the O.G.s (Original Gamers) that I knew.

Dragon Run is a fast, push-your-luck card game of grabbing treasure in a dungeon before a dragon wakes up to burn you to a crisp. The dungeon is a deck of 10 cards: nine of them direct you to take an action or stop, the 10th is the fire-breathing dragon. Each player has two hit points, so you hope to only see that dragon once on your turn. You’ll also have a special ability specific to your character.

In addition to collecting treasures, you’ll get potions and artifacts that help fend off the monster. Any time the dragon shows up, the dungeon deck is reshuffled and the hunt continues until only one player remains or if the dragon is done breathing its fire. In this latter case, the player with the most treasure wins.

I’ll never turn down a game of Dragon Run, if only because it reminds me of my gaming past. It was the reason why I couldn’t resist buying my own copy when I found it at Gamex 2017 a few weeks ago.

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