Season 3, Week 3, 4 and 5: Five Tribes, Codenames: Pictures, Camel Up!, Cosmic Encounter, Flick 'em Up!, Ra, and Lost in R'lyeh

This report will cover two and a half weeks of gaming.  The work of a teacher is never done (except in Summer), so my game reports have been a bit delayed.  My apologies.   And now....

Week 3: Five Tribes, Codenames: Pictures, and Camel Up! 

The original plan for Tuesday’s session was Camel Up, and Codenames: Pictures.  Our club attendance has been huge lately, so in anticipation of a large number, I had the Library Tech learn the rules for Codenames: Pictures and I was ready to run Camel Up.  Both games can accommodate large numbers, so if a swarm of players arrived, we would be prepared.  We had one person.

Perhaps it was a break in the weather, the pressures of school, or just an anomaly, but we only had one person show up (who also happens to be our most dedicated player).  I decided then that if our number was going to be small (one student, two staff), it was time to break out a four player game, one of my favourites… Five Tribes. 

Due to the large numbers we’ve been pulling in lately, games that max out their player count at four are just not on my radar.  The games I’ve been buying lately (Valeria: Card Kingdoms, Hokaido, Shadow Hunters) have been specifically because they can accommodate at least five people.  However, our small number let me revisit FiveTribes, a wonderful game combing elements of set collecting, auctioning, and a movement style on par with Chess.

Five Tribes is a difficult game to describe.  It’s a Euro style game played on a board of thirty randomly placed tiles.  Each tile is home to three randomly distributed meeples of five different colours: red, blue, white, green, and yellow.  These meeples are the primary source of power and resources.  Each turn, a player grabs all the meeples from one tile.  The player drops a meeple on sequential tiles.  When the last meeple is dropped, the player picks up all of the meeples of that colour.  Depending on the colour, different events or abilities are triggered.  Green meeples allow players to grabs sets of resource cards, red meeples are assassins, white are used to summon dijins, etc.  This mechanic for acquiring sets of meeples is clever, and one has to plan their moves carefully.  Seeing viable moves in order to grab certain colours takes on a strategy similar to chess.  It’s fun, challenging, but also susceptible to AP (analysis paralysis).  There are several features to the game that allow people to try different strategies.  Players can make a grab for territory, win through acquiring sets of resource cards, or win through powers granted by dijins.  Five Tribes has an intimidating amount of crunch and set-up.  Once the game starts, players grasp easily the core concepts, and it plays fairly smoothly. 

We had a great time.  The start of the session was a little janky as I had to remember and look up a couple key rules, Once we got the rules clear, we quickly got into the groove of the game.  It was competitive, and no one lost by too many points.  I'm definitely going to bring this out again in the next few months.

Friday had a decent turn-out of our regular players.  This gave us the opportunity to play Camel Up! And Code Names: Pictures.  The club has played Camel Up! before.  Here is what I said last year about the game:

The game actually has you playing as the spectators, playing bets on first camel, last camel, placing obstacles on the track, and advancing the race through rolling dice.  The dice are rolled via a pyramid you construct before you play.  Dice are dropped into the pyramid, and a neat locking mechanic allows one die to be released at random, changing the position of the camels.  When two or more camels occupy the same space, they stack up, with the "lead" camel being the camel on top of the stack. 

             

One criticism of the game is that it lacks any strategy, and the game is too random.  I found it to have plenty of strategy, especially when you're deciding whether or not to roll the dice.  Advancing the race grants you money, but also lets your opponents get a clearer picture of who is in the lead, and having the jump on your fellow players matters when it comes to betting.

We had a six player session of Camel Up!, and the new players really got into the experience.  One player did her best to convince other to refrain from rolling the dice so she could make all of her bets and desired plays.  This strategy of attempting to make the game last as long as possible worked in her favour as she scratched out the win. 

Next came Codenames: Pictures.  A few members of the group were familiar with the original Codenames.  Here is what I had to say last year about the original:

The game is incredibly simple to play, but it's also a game that rewards creative thinking and risk taking.  Players are divided into teams, and each team has a "codemaster".  Looking at a five by five grid of cards, (each card featuring a word) each codemaster tries to encourage their team into guessing certain cards representing operatives, all the while avoiding innocent bystanders and an assassin.We had fun, but there were some frustrating moments.  I accidentally nailed a perfect clue to scoop up two cards, but I mixed up the colours and scored two for my opponents.  "Table talk" on behalf of the Codemasters is forbidden, but the cross talk of the teams can steer the game into a particular direction that some might find manipulative and cheating.  Should players use the sand-timer that's included, and if so, how? The game was also a great challenge for our EAL student (English as Additional Language).  If you read my previous post I mentioned the challenge of the player I called "C" had with The Resistance when English is not her first language.  Codenames was educational, helped expand her vocabulary, but also put up some roadblocks in terms of her enjoyment.  It's a game that helps if you understand synonyms really well, which also happens to be a challenge for EAL speakers.

Codenames: Pictures Makes two changes to the original: the grid is five by four, and instead of words, the game uses pictures.  The pictures are not just public domain clip art; they are semi-surreal black and white pictures that contain a couple interesting ideas blended together.  A Volkswagen bug is both a car and an actual bug, for example.
 
For our EAL students, including the aforementioned “C”, the pictures came as a great relief.  Her English has improved tremendously over the last year, but the pictures put everyone on a more even playing-field.  It’s challenging, fun, and games turn over faster than the original due to the smaller grid.  The game can be combined with the original to add to the challenge.  One variation I might try is to use Dixit cards with Codenames: Pictures’ rules.  It might be interesting, but I might be biting off more than I can chew.

Week 4: Cosmic Encounter

This was a short week due to a teacher conference, so our Friday session was cancelled.  Tuesday's session, with its large turn-out, was a perfect excuse to break out one of my favourites: Cosmic Encounter.

As with the previous titles, this is a game many in the club have played.  I reported about it previously like so:
If you're an experienced game enthusiast, then Cosmic Encounter is on your proverbial radar. For the few of you who are not familiar with the game, Cosmic Encounter is a negotiation game of galactic conquest. The game plays up to five people out of the box, but I picked up two expansions that allow the game to accommodate seven players (more expansions are available and are quite pricey, but the game can be expanded up to eight). The game has some wonderful components. Each player gets five planets representing their home-worlds, and twenty plastic spaceships representing their armada and colonies. The ships are 50's inspired flying saucers that also stack like poker chips. That's a good analogy for how they are played; they're used by each player to represent an invasion force or defence, but since every encounter is a gamble, the poker chip feel is appropriate.

Each player in turn flips a card from a deck called the Destiny deck. This deck directs each player's target for conquest. Once a player has declared they are invading another player's territory, the attacker and defender lay down cards from their hands. The cards played will result in either a one sided victory, or negotiation for shared territory. As a result, due to the possible terms of the negotiations, multiple people can tie for first place. Attackers and defenders can also ask for help from the other players, making for some strategic alliances.

Even though the negotiation vs conquest mechanic is entertaining as is, the real draw of Cosmic Encounter is the massive selection of alien races included in the game. Each player selects an alien race that gives them an interesting power. These powers allow for bending the rules and give the game a massive amount of strategy and replay-ability. The game can easily be scaled down for a beginner gamers, or can be made quite complex for experienced gamers by adding optional decks of cards. We played several games of Cosmic Encounter this week, and I found it quite easy to teach. The core mechanics are simple to grasp, and the cards and alien races are labelled to allow for easily pulling out the more complex elements of the game.
This time, we experienced a new problem.  I had seven players, and fortunately had the necessary expansions for a massive seven player cosmic showdown.  The problem was that after an hour, a few players started to drop out.  Although I regularly stay for two hours, many of the players just couldn't stay past an hour and ten minutes or so.  When the game was completed, the original seven was down to a game of four, and two players negotiated a tie.  I still have high hopes for this game, but I have to find the sweet spot when it comes to the right mix of players and their commitment.  I'll try this game again in the Spring.

Week 5: Flick ‘em Up, Lost in R'lyeh, and Ra

In anticipation of another huge turn-out, on Tuesday I cracked open a game I knew could accommodate a large group of players, Flick ‘em Up!  F'eU is the great equalizer; regardless of strategy, reading ability, or capacity for Machiavellian scheming, none of it matters if you can’t flick a small wooden disk.  We played the game last year with great success.  At its heart, Flick ‘em Up is a hybrid of the flicking of crokinole and a miniature skirmish game, sort of like Imperial Assault.  Players are set in two teams, the Lawmen and the Outlaws.  Scenery and obstacles are placed on the table according to the parameters set in a book of scenarios.  The opening scenario is a simple shoot-out, while others have each side attempting to accomplish specific goals, like poisoning a water supply or rescuing a kidnapped victim.  Movement and the shooting of opponents are done by flicking small disks across a smooth table.  My classroom is perfect for the game.  The tables are the right size, and players can circle the “board” whenever the need.  We played through the opening scenario, with a win for the Law.  Our Outlaw team did more overall damage, but the Law claimed more confirmed kills.  Sometimes a bad flick leads to frustration, but the overall silliness and comradery of the game keeps the laughter going.  This is a game designed to inspire high-fives.

With Flick ‘em Up taking just over an hour, and a few players leaving early, it gave the remaining six of us a chance to play a little game that I think will eventually become a classic: Lost in R’lyeh.  Based on H.P Lovecraft’s short story “The Call of Cthulhu”, Lost in R’lyeh is an intriguing card game that attempts to capture a sense of madness, frustration, and desperate desire for freedom in a clever, elegant card game.  The cards are tarot sized cards, a much more comfortable option than standard or miniature cards.  There are two types of cards: horror cards that have a number or “horror-rating”, and event cards that trigger special abilities or change certain game conditions.  Players try to escape from R’lyeh by playing all of the cards in their hand, and eventually play cards that have been laid out in front of them at the start of the game.  Once these escape cards have been played, that player successfully escaped from R’lyeh.  Play continues until one player is left in the lost city.  In a rare twist, LiR is a game with no winners, just one loser.  The core of the game is like any game where players follow a suit, only in this case there are ten suits (the number on the horror cards).  Event cards can change suits, lock out certain players, or give the entire discard pile to a player to add to their hand, and delay their escape.

We really enjoyed the game.  It’s simple to play, but there are some clever little twists.  Playing multiples of a certain card triggers interesting powers and abilities, and the students picked up on the patterns and strategies.  The metaphorical stepping over other players in order to escape inspired some fun, spirited rivalries.  As a fan of HP Lovecraft’s work (I covered the topic in a previous blog), I love that the cards make reference to plot points from the short story.  This was a game we played later in the week as well.  It’s a great, simple filler that can accommodate six players.  It was also relatively inexpensive, so it’s a great buy.

I was ready to run Flick ‘em Up once more, perhaps trying a different scenario.  A low turn-out, five students, gave me a chance to try a new game in our collection: Ra.

Ra is a classy, elegant looking game, but is really a tense auction built around set-collection.  Ra comes with great components, including a massive amount of tiles and a small statue of the sun god himself.  Players take turns drawing tiles from a cloth bag, placing them on an auction track, and deciding whether or not to bid on these items or wait for something better.  In an interesting twist, I think what makes Ra so clever is how players bid.  Rather than use money, players are given three discs, each with a different value.  When a player makes a bid, they use a disc.  However, the winning disc they used becomes part of the prize in the following auction.  An immediate win for one player might turn into a long term benefit for another.  The students loved this game. Once they understood the scoring, players quickly figured out which strategy and sets they’re going to collect.  My only complaint with Ra is the images.  The current printing of Ra comes courtesy of Windrider Games.  The imagery is classical Egyptian, and the illustrations reflect the standard iconography of the region.  In an attempt to look authentic and capture the aesthetic of the ancient archaeology, Ra’s imagery if a little hard to decipher.  The tiles are small, and with five players huddled around a board, sometimes it’s difficult to make out the images.  The differences in the images are sometime subtle, so some clarification is needed from time to time to see if a tile is going to help finish a set, or if it’s a double of something one might already have.  However, that is nitpicking; Ra is a very fun game, and I suspect the student will want to play it again.  With time left after the game, we returned to Lost in R’lyeh to finish the day.

Wow…sorry for the verbose post folks.  The demands of the job got in the way of my reporting, but I plan on posting another update soon.  Next week, Shadow Hunters, Ticket to Ride, Small World, and Betrayal at House on the Hill!