by Bruce Whitehill

(Full disclosure: I’m writing about games I like!)

published in Knucklebones games magazine, November, 2006

Blokus Trigon
Publisher: Educational Insights
Designer: Bernard Tavitian
Type of Game: Tile laying strategy
Players: 2-4
Length of Play: 30 minutes
Age Range: 5-adult
Price: $30
Learning Curve: 2
Challenge: 4

There have been many discussions, nay, arguments, about which game is better: Blokus Trigon, with its pieces made up of triangles and played on a hexagonal board, or the original Blokus, played on a square board with pieces that are a combination of squares, that came out in 2000. Strangely enough, there appears to be very little difference between the two; how the games play and the level of strategy and enjoyment seem to be pretty much the same. Both games are excellent and offer an infinite variety of play.

In Blokus Trigon, each player gets 22 pieces, each piece different, consisting of anywhere from one triangle to six triangles. The idea is to place as many of your pieces on the board as possible before there is no place left in which to place a piece. This means that you have to do as much to limit an opponent’s expansion of territory as you do to enlarge your own range. You must place your piece next to a piece of your own color so that the pieces make contact—but by only the point of one of the triangles; the sides cannot touch. This key element is what keeps the game continually interesting, even if it may be a little difficult to recognize all the possibilities at first. Initially, you’re just placing pieces unopposed, and everything seems easy. Until you meet the competition. By the end of the game, you’re trying to squeeze pieces in hard-to-see, hard-to-fit places, and before the other guy plays there first.

The most important piece is the single triangle. You get a bonus of five points if you save the one-triangle piece as your last placement, in addition to 15 points for placing all your pieces. But the single triangle might have much more value played earlier, connecting you across what appears to be an opponent’s impenetrable barrier. Incidentally—actually, it’s not so incidental—if you are unable to play all your pieces, you lose one point for every triangle that makes up all your unplayed pieces.

The four-player game is the best, since you have to attack and defend on two fronts at the same time. Most of your moves will be against the two players sitting on both sides of you, but if you can traverse the board, you will have another opponent to contend with—but also more territory to conquer. No, it’s not really a war game in the usual sense, but you are trying to capture territory in such a way that you gain additional moves for yourself while restricting those of your opponents.

The two-player game is also good, but only if you use all four colors. This is explained in the rules under “Game Variations,” but it should be listed as the standard game for two players and not a variation. Each player controls two colors, and the colors are played in a specific order. A variation would be playing your two colors as one—that is to say, that you can play either one of your colors on your move and you can place either color so that it is touching a piece of either of your colors.

The major difference between Blokus and Blokus Trigon is in the game for three players. Naturally, a three-player game is more symmetrical on a hexagonal board than it would be on a square board. As I think about it, this factor, plus the value of the single triangle, might make Brokus Trigon my choice over the original Blokus.

Blokus was designed by Bernard Tavitian, and, though the designer of Blokus Trigon was not shown, one must give credit to the original inventor. The game is listed as suitable for players as young as five years old, but don’t be fooled—this is an adult strategy game. Younger players will quickly grasp the concept and will enjoy the placement of pieces even if their tactical level is imperfect. And the colorful, mosaic appearance of the completed board is visually appealing for young and old.

Besides the question of which game plays better, the only argument is in how to say the name. Most people pronounce it as it looks—“Blow-kus”—but the name is actually “Block-iss,” in reference to the important blocking element in the game. The one thing that is not in question is the amount of enjoyment you can have playing the game over and over.

Gambit
Publisher: MindWare
Designers: Hila and Ivan Moscovich
Type of Game: 2-player tile-sliding strategy
Players: 2
Length of Play: 20 minutes
Age Range: 8 and up
Price: $30
Learning Curve: 3
Challenge: 3

Deviously Difficult: Mind-bending Puzzles, Fiendishly Frustrating Brain-Twisting Puzzles, Pattern Games, and Number Games are just four of the more than 20 puzzle books Ivan Moscovich has written in this decade alone. His 1,000 Play Thinks: Puzzles, Paradoxes, Illusions & Games published in 2001 is a 420-page masterwork of incredible puzzles of all levels and types. That gives you some idea of what to expect when this great puzzlemaster turns his attention to creating a game. Gambit is just the game for puzzle lovers.

The game was first was launched in Europe a couple of decades ago under the name of “Transfer.” It was well received, especially in Germany and also in France where it was accorded some “best-in-category” honor. At the time, Ivan’s daughter Hila was quite young when, according to him, “we collaborated in creating the game and she gave quite a number of creative ideas. So she is the co-author of the game.”

Gambit begins simply enough by distributing colored square tiles at random along nine rows on a special board, making sure that no two of the same color lie next to each other. There are 35 tiles, five in each of seven colors, and each row will hold only up to five pieces. Along each side of these rows is a platform that moves up and back, allowing you to line it up with any row. So you can slide pieces from a row onto the platform, move the platform, and unload the pieces onto different rows.

The object is to get five squares of the same color into one row. If you push pieces from the platform on your side of the board into a row that has enough pieces for some to be pushed off the edge, you move your opponent’s tray so that the pieces are pushed into the tray. Then you move that tray to unload those pieces into another row or rows—but you cannot push pieces back onto your own platform. The other restriction is that you cannot break up same-color groups; if there are two or three tiles of the same color together, you must move them together, whether you’re loading onto your own platform, unloading onto the board, or pushing pieces through onto your opponent’s platform.

You are allowed to load from one to three pieces onto your platform, taking them from one or more rows. You can unload them into one, two or three rows. It sounds more difficult than it is, but it does take a while to see the plan-ahead strategies, especially those that involve the re-positioning of pieces pushed through onto your opponent’s platform. The beginning, middle and end game are quite different, as you begin with mixed-up pieces (disorder), eventually get color groupings of two, three, and four pieces, and end with completing rows of a single color (order), one row at a time.

When you succeed in completing a row of five pieces of the same color, you score a point. Pieces affixed to two outside edges of the board make for easy scorekeeping. The game ends when all seven rows have been completed, or when no additional moves will lead to the completion of another row. The player with the most points wins.

Gambit is very clever and the physical components are excellent and work well. I like a game (if it’s a good game) where the device that comes with it is integral to the game and not just an accessory to warrant charging a higher price. The only thing missing for me—since I know the puzzles of Ivan Moscovich—was some sort of solitaire puzzle that could be played with the same special equipment. I’m sure Ivan could come up with one, but in the meantime I’ll look for more opponents so I can play Gambit again.

Hive
Publisher: Smart Zone Games
Designer: John Yianni
Type of Game: tile-placement strategy
Players: 2
Length of Play: 30 minutes
Age Range: 8 +
Price: $25-33 (€20 in Europe)
Learning Curve: 2
Challenge: 4

Let’s cut to the chase: Hive is the best two-player game I’ve come across in decades. The catchy box copy, “A Game Crawling With Possibilities,” only hints at the surprisingly innovative game inside. I love the concept, and especially how the theme and the movement of the pieces work together.

British born inventor John Yianni came up with the idea for Hive nearly two decades ago. He built himself a prototype and played it. Once. It didn’t work. “I was thinking in square tiles like a chess board.” Chess was the inspiration for his idea, but he wanted a game that would work without a gameboard. Or, to be more exact, where the pieces became the board. A game in which each piece had a unique movement, as in chess. “I forgot about the game until 2000 when I started to think hexagonal tiles,” John recounts. He took a new prototype to a game club and was encouraged by the response. So much so that he made 1000 copies and soon found that the games sold faster than he could produce them. Since then, Hive has been distributed on four continents and has been chosen for a Mensa award and Dr. Toy’s “Best Smart Play” award for 2006. It has been described as “Nature’s chess game.”

Each player has 11 hexagonal-shaped pieces, representing different insects. The hive grows as each new piece is placed. After the first two moves, any new piece you add to the hive must not touch an opponent’s piece. The hive changes when pieces that are already a part of the hive are moved, and now opposing pieces can touch. The mass of pieces must always stay connected, so you can never move a piece that in doing so would create two hives or leave a creature isolated. Movement along the surface is from one side of a hexagon to an adjacent side of same hexagon or the one next to it.

Five critters make up the hive, and each has a special property. The Queen Bee can only move one place at a time, and the object of the game is to completely surround your opponent’s Queen Bee. The Spider moves exactly three places around the hive. The Soldier Ant can move anywhere around the outside of the hive. These three pieces must be physically able to slide from place to place without being lifted.

The Beetle can move only one place per turn but can also climb on top of an adjacent piece, rendering that piece immobile; similarly, the Beetle can drop into an empty space within the hive. The Grasshopper can jump over a straight line of pieces, allowing it to land on the other side of the hive or in between in a free space in the middle.

The critters (the pieces) get trapped and then freed while the two players reposition the hive continually as they change from an offensive to a defensive strategy. You’re after your opponent’s Queen Bee, but you need to keep your own protected. You can win with a succession of calculated moves, but you can also lose without even seeing it coming.

The packaging for Hive is good, and I think the Bakelite-style pieces are wonderful; I like the graphics and the color. But the important thing is, as I said, the game is superb. The only suggestion I would make is that the first time you play, you play it with someone who knows the game—the instructions are, surprisingly enough, an organizational catastrophe. While the individual explanations are clear enough, the instructions as a whole are total confusion, starting with a Table of Contents that lists 14 pages when the entire set of instructions is printed on one sheet with eight sections.

Still, I recommend this game highly to anyone who thinks they’re smart, or wants to get smart. Hive lets you start with nothing and create not only a gameboard but a game as well, a miniature universe that keeps changing right up until the end.

Pentago
Publisher: Mindtwister USA
Designer: Tomas Flodén
Type of Game: 2-player strategy
Players: 2
Length of Play: 15 minutes
Age Range: 6 and up
Price: $20-25
Learning Curve: 1
Challenge: 3

The game of Pentago comes from Sweden. Now that may not be important to you or me, but it sure is to the people that market it. You’re told about the game’s Swedish roots on the box, in the rules, and on the website (http://www.pentago.com). On the box, besides mentioning the Vikings, Abba, the Nobel prize, Ikea, and “tall, blond and blue eyed people,” the marketers explain that since Sweden is “a nation that is very clever and enjoys a sense of simplicity,” one can expect the Swedes to create a game that is simple, stylistic, smart, and “deep with strategy and logic.” Okay, I’ll buy some of that. Pentago is simple, and yet the level of strategy required should satisfy most tacticians.

The game consists of four wood blocks with nine holes in each. The rules are extremely easy—they take up less than a 9-square-inch page, though an additional nine pages present a sample game and lots of strategies. On your turn, place your color marble in any empty hole, then turn one of the blocks 90 degrees. The object is to get five of your color marbles in a row, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Visualize, if you will, four tic-tac-toe boards next to one another. (I can imagine the proud Swedes cringing as I use a common children’s game to explain their stylistic marvel.) If you can place, say, two marbles of your color next to each other and then twist that board to get the marbles to line up with three in a row on another board, you win. Rarely will a game be won by merely placing a marble—it’s the twist that leads to victory.

And it’s this twist that makes Pentago live up to its lofty language. It has a child-like sense to it until you try to play. Then it’s not so easy. “The style of play, spatial orientation techniques and strategies get perplexingly complex,” explain the marketers.

Pentago was invented by account analyst Tomas Flodén during “an exceptionally dull accounting meeting,” and he brought the game to the Swedish market in 2004. The following year, Mathias Ringstrom, a Swede living in California, received a Pentago game from his mother when he was in Stockholm. Before he could dismiss the gift as a children’s game, his mother challenged him to a few games, beating him several games in a row.

Returning to California, Mathias introduced the game to Tony Mag, another Swedish transplant, who, like him, is a logic game aficionado. Both Swedes “were so impressed with the simple genius of Pentago” that they contacted the Swedish company and obtained the license to market, manufacture and sell the game in North America. Mindtwister USA was born, with Mathias Ringstrom at the helm. Tony and Mathias are not strangers to the recreation and leisure industry as they have more than 30 years combined experience in the Action Sports field. Both are internationally recognized professional skateboarders and have been involved in the businesses side of that market since 1985.

Pentago plays, and its appeal should run the gamut from young to old, from families (two at a time, of course) to serious players. The game’s solid base, aluminum dividers and wood blocks do give Pentago a sense of simple style (or stylish simplicity), especially when adorned with the black and white marbles that complete the game. The Strategy Guide that is included with the rules is easy to follow and is designed to—as Tony tells it—quickly turn a novice player into a Pentago pro. I’m sure Pentago tournaments are in the works. The game has earned the “National Parenting Seal of Approval,” and Pentago won the “Swedish Game of the Year” award in 2005 and the American Mensa Select Award in 2006.

Poison
Publisher: Playroom Entertainment
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Type of Game: trick taking card game
Players: 3-6
Length of Play: 15-60 minutes
Age Range: 10-adult
Price: $15
Learning Curve: 1
Challenge: 3

Reiner Knizia is one of the world’s best and most prolific game designers. This makes reviewing a Knizia game a little tough. On the one hand, you have an expectation that the game has to be good. On the other hand, high expectations might lead to disappointment. So I guess it all balances out. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should point out that my favorite card game of all time, “Money” (1999), is a Knizia game. And I know Reiner and have done work for the publisher of Poison, Playroom Entertainment. But, hey, I know most of the major designers and have worked for many of the companies, so you’ll just have to accept my subjectively objective comments.

As for this current game, Knizia doesn’t disappoint. There are times when even the most serious player wants something simple and quick. This might be your Poison. The game is straightforward and fast. I was given a jolt when I saw the instruction book was 12 pages, but then realized it was in large print in English, Spanish and French.

The object is to avoid taking tricks—avoiding the points associated with the toxic concoctions on the cards. There are three cauldrons, and on each turn you have to play one of the cards in your hand into one of the cauldrons. Pretty simple so far. But you cannot mix the potions—that is, you can put a potion card only in an empty cauldron or one that has cards of the same potion—i.e., the same color. Each card has a value. The total value of all the cards in each cauldron cannot exceed 13. (The game is published also under the name “Thirteen.”) Once you’re forced to play a card in a cauldron that brings the value above 13 (you always have to play a card!), you get all the cards in there, leaving behind the one you played. That’s bad. But when the game is over, if you have the most cards of a particular color, that’s good—you get to discard them. It’s sort of like “shooting the moon” in hearts—you’re trying to take nothing, unless you can go for them all, or, in this case, at least the most of one color.

Adding to mix are the eight Poison cards that can be played in any cauldron. These are worth two-points each, twice the scoring value of the other cards, and it’s these poison cards that can be unhealthy. Remember, like the poison, points are bad.

The game plays well for any number of players, though the three-player game feels a little more cutthroat. Since scoring is done after each round and there are as many rounds in the game as there are players, a three-player game is going to go much faster than one with six players. The game is so easy to play and a breeze to pick up, that it makes for a good filler in addition to be a game worthy of multiple plays. And the box graphics are great. At $15 the price of Poison is right. As is the case with many Knizia games, you get more than you’re paying for.

Trapture
Publisher: Educational Insights
Designer: uncredited
Type of Game: two-player strategy
Players: 2
Length of Play: 30 minutes
Age Range: 6+
Price: $25
Learning Curve:1
Challenge: 3

The name is a combination of “trap” and “capture,” which pretty well sums up what you’re trying to do in Trapture, a strategy game for two players. “Squiggily” pieces (the company calls them “Squiggles”) are placed like walls in the indentations surrounding small hexagons on a large hexagonal board. It’s sort or like the pencil and paper game of Dots or Boxes in which you draw perpendicular lines trying to create boxes. But in Trapture, you are attempting to surround 13 pegs that have been placed on the board before the game starts.

Of your 12 Squiggles, nine have different shapes, so the strategy comes in deciding which piece to play and where. Initially, each player has to start from a particular location along one of three bands of his color. This means that play is moving inward from all sides of the hexagonal board. One aspect that is similar to Blokus, one of the company’s strategy successes in its “StrataGems Brain-Building Games” line, is that you need to carve out as much territory as possible, blocking your opponent in the process. Being able to place only one piece on a turn means that you cannot battle on all three of your fronts, so decisions need to be made continually as to which pegs to give up in order to work on a potentially more fruitful area.

Capturing a peg means surrounding it with your color on at least four of the six sides. Since there are thirteen pegs and two players, the first to capture seven pegs is the winner. It is possible, however, that not all pegs will be captured by the time both players have used up all their pieces, and each player might wind up with the same number. In this case, any pegs that have not been captured are examined to see which player has controlled more sides of the “neutral” pegs than the opponent.

As the pieces begin to zigzag around the board, an interesting game begins to develop. What looks very simple initially becomes more complex as the game progresses, requiring thought and calculation in the planning of future moves. Grabbing a bunch of pegs in the beginning is not going to win the game if you can’t get to the majority of pegs later on. I like these kinds of games of attack and defend and counter attack. And Trapture is the kind of game where you might think you’re ahead—until your opponent wins.

In this abstract strategy game, the pieces and the board mesh well together, and the look of a finished game is pleasing. My only problem with Trapture is the size of the box. I know a two-piece board would not have felt as good, but this way, Trapture, which doesn’t fit on the game shelves, either has to be stored in the freezer with the similarly shaped pizza boxes or is relegated to the closet, where it is likely to be forgotten.

Though definitely an adult strategy game, Trapture will work well for children too, since the placement of pieces is easy and the resulting color connections are attractive. It’s easy to learn, and it’s not too difficult to figure out some basic strategies. Winning, however, might be a different problem.

Game Buyers Guide for 2006

The Very Good and the Better
by Bruce Whitehill
published in Knucklebones games magazine January 2007

It’s that time of the year [November (2006)] when people check listings of the best buys. Creating such a list is no easy task for the compilers and writers. First of all, these lists are very subjective. In terms of games, my tastes may not (and often do not) conform to the serious game-players’ views. For one thing, I prefer to leave the 90-minutes-and-up games to my colleagues (who I’m sure will be giving good advice elsewhere in this issue). For another, I like some of the smaller, abstract games that “serious” players use only as “filler.”

Secondly, picking the “best of” a category means you should be familiar with everything in that category. This is an impossible task, as hundreds of games are introduced every year. What we play and what we learn about depends on what games get the “buzz” and what manufacturers send us information. There are many independent inventors out there producing their own games—some of which may be great—but we don’t find out about all of them.

Thirdly, there is so much good stuff on the market that picking the very best is more than difficult. Consider the many individual sports competitions where the ones who didn’t win missed out by seconds or inches or a couple of points.  As for the best games, my list of the top 100 games of all time is now up to about 180—and I’m not sure how much more I can narrow it down.

In terms of the exercise at hand, however—that is, to provide you with information about some of the best new releases and favorite classic games you can buy today—I am focusing on games that are realistically available to the American consumer. (Some of the games might be more accessible in Europe, while others might be unavailable overseas.) I have chosen some of the games according to a few categories I like to use, and I have aimed at including games that would be appreciated by the general public, not just the serious players. Here, then, is my take on what may not be the truly “best” games, but are at least the very good and better ones.

Just For One

There are few good games on the market that can be played by one person—and many people would consider those more as puzzles rather than games. (You can make a game of it by challenging someone to find the solution in less time than it took you.) In any case, one is worth mentioning here: MetaForms (Foxmind). A sample puzzle was in the premiere issue of “Knucklebones.” The object is to fill a 3 x 3 grid with pieces of three different shapes and colors. Since the puzzles are graded from easy to difficult, MetaForms is suitable for children or adults.

Time for Two

Two-player games are less popular in the U.S. than in Europe (where a major company, Kosmos, even has an entire line of them); American manufacturers don’t think they can sell enough games for only two players. They probably could if they had a game like Hive (Smart Zone Games). Forgetting what I said earlier about the impossible task of making a “best” list, Hive is the best two-player game I’ve seen in decades. There is no board, just large, hexagonal pieces that are placed one at a time onto a table, each piece always touching at least one other piece. A piece, with the image of an insect on it, can be introduced into the game or moved according to the properties of that insect. And as this happens, the hive grows and changes shape. You need to defend your queen as you try to trap your opponent’s. Simple, but heavy mental!

Gambit (MindWare) is much lighter fare from puzzlemaster Ivan Moscovich and his daughter Hila. The game’s unique plastic platform allows you to remove small square tiles from center rows on the board and slide them into other rows, the aim being to line up five of one color in a row. But while you’re setting up for your score, your opponent may out-maneuver you and create the line-up first. The game is short, quick to start and picks up speed near the end as more and more single-colored rows are created.

A new game with a classic feel to it is Pentago (Mindtwister USA). Imagine four tic-tac-toe boards put together to make a square. Instead of trying to get three in a row, now you need five in a row to win. But each of the four boards can be rotated. In fact, the player has to rotate one of the boards after placing a marble in one of the holes that make up the 6 x 6 grid. It’s simple and fast and you can lose before you see it coming. Watch out for those diagonals!

One of the best and oldest two-player games is the classic Othello. Though branded a new game when it came from Japan in the 1970s, it is actually the game of Reversi from the 1880s (with a history going back to the 1870s), save for a small starting placement rule change. The game is still on the market and every home should have one. The playing pieces—64 in number—are black on one side and white on the other, and each player assumes one color. After the initial placement of four pieces in the center of an 8 x 8 grid, you must place a piece so that it sandwiches in one or more of your opponent’s pieces; the pieces in the middle are then turned over to become your color. If you have more than 32 of your color when no more moves can be made, you win. Search for “Othello game” online and you’ll find sites where you can play the game for free.

Family Games

The category of “family games” is used by most of the major companies to describe their games that can be played by, well, the whole family. Problem is, most of those games are okay for the kids but not at all of interest to Mom and Dad. Two recent games geared to the younger set are actually fun for adults as well. Space Faces (Educational Insights), another winner by the aforementioned Ivan Moscovich, is a visual identification game that reminds me of the marvelous card game of Scan, published by Parker Brothers in 1970 and in their line for many years. The Space Faces gameboard has pictures of 140 aliens, no two of which are exactly alike; they are identified by the color of their eyes, nose, mouth and face. The “Alien Identification Device” tells you what colors to look for, and the first player to find the particular alien is rewarded. The thing about this game that makes it great for families is that the kids actually have a better chance of winning than their aging elders.

What Space Faces is to the visual sense, The Touch (Anthony Innovations) is to the tactile. A flying saucer style space ship contains a myriad of items in miniature which need to be identified by feeling them sight unseen. Once again, what might be easy for the kids can be a challenge for adults, but fun for both.

Party Games

The category of “party games” or “parlor games,” popular in the 1940s and earlier, got a new start with Trivial Pursuit and was strengthened by such games as Balderdash and Bop-It. The best of the category came in 1999 in the form of Apples to Apples (Out of the Box). (The name “Apples to Oranges” was already taken.) On each card in one set is a descriptive adjective; when one is flipped over onto the table, players (at the same time and with a different set of cards) need to throw down a card from their hand with the name of a person, place, thing, or event on it that might be most clearly associated with the table card. The last person to play a card has to take it back, losing that turn. The judge chooses the best match—and each player gets to be the judge an equal number of times. With the right crowd, this is an uproarious game, and one of few games I’ve seen people play over and over, even in one night when there was an overabundance of games to choose from. If “brilliant” were the card on the table and you were the judge, would you pick “cell phones,” “Casablanca,” “electricity,” or “Vincent van Gogh”? There is no one right answer, and players can attempt to influence the judge (verbally, of course).

The other party game is one that causes you to think “outside the box,” as the publishers put it. More mental than manic, MindTrap (Pressman; also Outset Media Games, www.outsetmedia.com), perplexing people since 1991, is a game of question and answer puzzles, riddles, and such, that “usually involve…a mystery, or a play on words that will require some kind of lateral thinking,” and sometimes with a little math or even physics thrown in. The game is played by two teams (or two players), so it can entertain a small group, yet it offers the kind of puzzles that I like also to solve alone, making it good for solitaire play. Q: If two mothers and two daughters were fishing and caught only three fish, how could each one of them take home a fish? A: There were only three people— a daughter, her mother and her grandmother; the mother was both a mother and a daughter.

Classics

Some games are so good they have true staying power for generations. No matter how hot the new releases are, there is no reason to stop playing Scrabble or Boggle, or to stick Sid Sackson’s Acquire on a back shelf (all three: Hasbro). First invented in 1962, Acquire, a business investment game with stocks and a goal of acquiring the most wealth, is not as imposing as its description might sound; it is simple and engaging, with a bit of luck thrown in. One of my favorites, David Parlett’s 1974 game Hare and Tortoise (Rio Grande), is perhaps the first popular game to promote the now-trendy concept of “resource management.” The faster you go (i.e., the further you move), the more it costs you; the slower you go, the more fuel (carrots) you can accumulate. But move too slowly and you lose the race.

New and Admired

The best (or at least the better) releases this year include games recently reviewed in “Knucklebones,” so I won’t go into much detail here. Blokus Trigon (Educational Insights) follows the success of Blokus and may even be a tad better, and the company’s lesser-known game, Rumis, is a neat spatial cube game. Reiner Knizia’s Poison (Playroom) is a card game quick and simple. And if you like train games (and who wouldn’t?), Alan Moon’s Ticket to Ride Europe takes you across Europe at the turn-of-the-century (the 20^th), while Ticket to Ride Märklin (both Days of Wonder) is a joyride across Europe, home of Märklin, manufacturers of modern miniature trains. Moon’s original Ticket to Ride came out in 2004, but he is no stranger to train games, having invented the near-classic Union Pacific  (Rio Grande) in 1999.

Not So New But Still In Style

In the last fifteen years, a host of good games have hit the market, many of them originating in Europe and being Anglicized and sold in the U.S. through companies such as Rio Grande, Mayfair, Funagain, and Überplay. Two top choices are the interesting, well-themed tile placement game, Carcassonne, and the more complex Settlers of Catan, which requires negotiating trades with other players. El Grande is on par in terms of intricacy, whereas Ricochet Robot, though very uncomplicated, demands calculating moves that are too involved for some. Alhambra, a tile-laying game, Kahuna, an interesting, smaller game of bridge-building and majority ownership, and Clans, a wonderful game of people placement and moving, are all board games worth owning. Torres is more three-dimensional than any of the others, and Tutankhamen (Out of the Box) is an intriguing boardless game in which small cardboard tiles form a meandering path on the table.

The Ultimate Game Gift

If you’re looking for something truly exquisite to give as a gift, check out the handcrafted wood games made by Matthias Mauser of Videndum (featured in the July issue of “Knucklebones”) at http://www.videndum-games.de/. There you can find the consummate blend of classic and modern in games and game “furniture,” costing anywhere from $2000 to over $22,000! Plus postage from Germany.

Game Buyers Guide for 2007

by Bruce Whitehill
published in Knucklebones games magazine January 2008

It’s that time of year again when critics, commentators, reviewers and redoubtable game analyzers attempt to produce their list of the most interesting, most influential, most enjoyable games of the past twelve months, the proverbial “Best” list. I prefer a “Pretty Good” list, which is never “best” because I am not privy to all the games recently released, nor do I take an interest in every type of game produced—like the two-to-four-hour resource-management trading games where I need a cheat sheet of characters and commodities in addition to the summary card often provided. Besides, I also like the idea of using this column to mention a few games that, well, probably no one else will mention.

Let’s get serious

As for those long and longer games, word has it that more intricate games such as Tide of Iron (Fantasy Flight Games) and Phoenicia (JKLM Games) have been very well received by serious game players. Dirk Henn’s Shogun (published by Queen), a game likely to occupy a long evening, is considered exceptional. And if you haven’t had a chance to read the book, at least you can play The Pillars of the Earth (Die Säulen der Erde) in about two hours. The game is based on the bestselling novel by Ken Follett, and allows players to contribute to the building of a grand cathedral in 13^th century England. In this heavily-praised resource management game, on each turn you need to create a balance between collecting victory points or getting gold to pay for materials, craftsmen, and master builders to construct the edifice. Game authors Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler have produced an intriguing game that is easier to get into than many of its type, yet offers a good level of complexity for serious players.

Mac Gerdts’ Imperial is another highly-acclaimed, intricate game. In Imperial, once you grasp the concept that you do not control the six Imperial nations of Europe but you are attempting to exert influence over them, the two hours you spend as an investor in one or more of the powers, can be time well-spent. (I learned this game when my partner and I were asked to translate the German rules into English. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I should say I am involved with quite a few games and game companies in my line of work—and I number several game inventors among my friends—but my words in print are, I feel, unbiased, though assuredly subjective, and my approach impartial and evenhanded.)

Bison, by celebrated games inventors Wolfgang Kramer (El Grande; Daytona 500; 6 Nimmt; Torres) and Michael Kiesling (Pueblo; Tikal; Torres) set their newest collaboration in the Indian country of the northwest United States. The board is made up of 28 tiles that sit together to form the terrain surrounding a winding river, where fish, fowl, and buffalo are abundant. The Nez Perce Indians are featured in this historical game, the object of which is to gather the most provisions before the harsh Rocky Mountain winter sets in. Teepees, canoes, and colored wood markers are used to represent movement, habitat and activity, and everything is recorded on the player’s individual trading and action board. The end result is about 90 minutes of enjoyable competitive diversion with a morsel of edification.

Another game from Mayfair (and Phalanx in Europe), like Bison, is Emira. Paul Van Hove and Liesbeth Vanzeir have created a “time long past” in which players become rich oriental sheiks whose desire is to entice the princesses (“Emira”) to join the harem. For about 100 minutes, each player attempts to make himself as “attractive” as possible—through appearance, status, and the size of his palace—in order to attract the required number of Emira possessing the appropriate skills and talents. The authors point out that this “satirical historical game” does not glorify harems, and that the game’s princesses are all self-confident and emancipated. The complexity of Emira is born out by its components: event cards, goal cards, status cards, Emira cards; appearance counters showing, among other things, beauty, attire and manners; palace sections and camel markers; gold coins, spice supplies tokens, colored wooden disks, and individual player boards in addition to the game board. Though the game is for three to five players, the rule changes for a three-player game suggest the game might be best for four or five.

Conquest of Pangea, a game by Phil Orbanes and published under the new Winning Moves brand of designer games, Immortal Eyes Games, is much simpler than its listed 90-minute playing time suggests. Though the luck of the initial outlay of pieces could effect the game dramatically in favor of one player, I love the element of the gameboard beginning as one large land mass, then changing as the game progresses, as each continent separates from what is now Africa. Pangea is the name given to the super-continent which broke apart about 200 million years ago (into what Webster’s calls Gondwana and Laurasia), and the key to the game is in dominating the best terrain as these land shifts occur.

Leonardo Da Vinci (“Maestro Leonardo”; Mayfair; Abacus), invented by a team of Italian game designers, has been called a “gamer’s game.” The scene is Florence during the Renaissance. Players are masters trying to place the most apprentices and mechanical robots in their laboratories to make inspired inventions, which take time and effort, along with the right materials. The most complex inventions bring the best money. Creating up to five different kinds of complex inventions will allow one of the 2-5 players to accumulate the most money and win. The required nine rounds of stimulating play will probably take much longer than the 60 minutes suggested.

If you’re concerned about how long a game is going to last—often much longer than the playing times written on the box—then your best bet is Space Dealer. Tobias Stapelfeldt’s unique game takes 30 minutes. Exactly! In the race to develop goods and distribute them to different planets, all players are moving simultaneously, each with two 30-second timers that indicate when the player’s current action is completed so the next action can begin. A CD is enclosed with the game to provide not only a video of the instructions, but a 30-minute “space” music audio which you can use in place of a timer.

A Good Strategy for Boxed Fun

Another Indian-themed game (American Indians are a popular theme in European games) is Anasazi. The Anasazi were the pueblo Indians who built their homes in caves into the 13^th century in the American Southwest. In this game, players explore the lost cities of the Anasazi in an attempt to collect the most valuable treasures from the four tribes. In a unique set-up, the cardboard pieces that make up the board are placed on the table, but not touching one another; they represent the mesas, and the tabletop between them corresponds to the valleys and canyons. Campsites are placed in these flatlands as the game progresses. A certain amount of visual judgment is required in determining if an expedition marker crossing a valley will reach a pueblo. Anasazi is one of the newest games (Amigo’s Venedig is another) by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, inventor of Carcassonne and the more recent Mesopotamia, and the graphics are by the renowned German illustrator Franz Vohwinkel. The game plays in about half an hour.

Michael Schacht  is the author of Coloretto and Hansa, among many other games, and the German Game of the Year 2007, Zooloretto. His other top game for the year is Patrician (Amigo; Mayfair), set in Italy in the Middle Ages. An easy game requiring tactical skills, Patrician provides the player with ample opportunity to make decisions regarding the cities in which he wants to build. The taller the building, the greater the prestige, but the competition to achieve great heights is formidable. Majority rule earns the most victory points (I mean prestige points) but the building permit card you will get depends on what city you build in; working in one city where you have the greatest desire to build may not get you the permit to build in another city of your choice. Though playable for two to five players (the two-sided board accommodates two to four and five players, respectively), the more the merrier in my house, especially since only the top two builders in a city can score. Less than an hour is required for a good time.

Thief of Baghdad, Yspahan, and Terra Nova all have been reviewed in detail in previous issues of Knucklebones. Thorsten Gimmler’s Thief of Baghdad (Queen Games), a card and board game combination, is an easy romp through the palaces of Baghdad in search of the best treasure, requiring a little deception and bribery. There hasn’t been a Thief of Baghdad game since Selchow & Righter marketed one based on the 1940 movie of that name, starring Sabu, and this one is, of course, much better. Terra Nova, another Immortal Eyes Games entry from Winning Moves, is a simple territorial game in which you must strategically plan the movement of your pioneers and placement of your stone borders. Though Thief of Baghdad and Terra Nova are both for two to four players, Thief of Baghdad feels better with more players while Terra Nova seems to play well for any number.

Yspahan, the first published game of Sébastien Pauchon, has already gained recognition as an excellent game, having won critical acclaim and at least three prestigious awards. The setting is the capital of the Persian Empire, 1598, and each merchant (that’s you, the player) has to trade and move goods and construct buildings. In this 55- to 75-minute game, you play on an attractive board, employing some cards and a tolerable number of pieces—of which I like the little camels best.

Fun For One

Normally, games for one player are considered puzzles, but since they’re sold as “games,” I’ll include one here. Educational Insight’s Zookeeper’s Nightmare, “The Zany Zoo Escape Game,” offers 18 graded puzzles in which the object is to get one “runaway” animal back home. Twelve plastic blocks hold sturdy animals whose noses, trunks or snouts and/or tails may protrude beyond the block. With one block removed, the player has to slide the other blocks around until the chosen animal makes it to the “home” space. (I guess it was considered more politically correct to have the escaped animals finding their way home, rather than having the animals escaping, though that somehow seems more fitting for this type of puzzle.) The “game” is very similar to the wonderful puzzles put out by Think Fun (the former, Binary Arts company), such as Rush Hour, only in a much bigger box. According to the box copy, Zookeeper’s Nightmare can be played by children as young as six, but I found the four “advanced puzzles” quite challenging for the more mature mind.

Take Two

There are at least three games for two players worth talking about (the games, not the players). The first is a Richard Garfield game: Pecking Order. Published by Immortal Eyes (Winning Moves), this simple game to learn plays very quickly. The illustrations (box, board and cards) by Doug Kovacs are exceptional, but there’s much more to the game than meets the eye. Players have the same set of twelve bird cards (plus a jaguar wildcard), each with a specific value. Each card is chosen one at a time from the top of the player’s stack and placed on the board, on one of the player’s eleven “perches”; the other player has the same perches on the opposite side, and the perches are arranged in ascending order of point value. Only one bird—the one with the highest value—can control the perch; when one player tries to place a card on a perch occupied on the other side of the board by the other player’s card, a challenge takes place. Where to play each card as it is drawn makes this a game of high strategy with a modicum of bluffing; there is an element of luck in terms of what card is drawn when. This game scores very high in repeat play value.

The other two two-player games come from Out of the Box, a company that offers an increasing variety of good games and some of the best party games, among them Apples to Apples. Coverup is a game whose object is to get four disks in a row. The difference between this and similar games is that the disks are three different sizes, so smaller disks of one color can be covered over by a larger disk, typically of a different color. With a limited number of disks, you need to be very careful of which size of your color to place where. Mixup is yet another four-in-a-row game, though an added way of winning is to get four tiles in a two-by-two square. Well-known game inventor Maureen Hiron (Continuo) adds a nice twist to this game: one player is trying to win with her color while the other is looking to connect pieces of his shape. The beauty of the game is that in all its trickiness—pieces you play may help your opponent as much as you—the game takes only about ten to fifteen minutes to play.

Educational Insight’s Pixel is a new game with an old theme: once again, be the first player to get four in a row. Colored pieces are placed on an 8 x 8 grid board, except the four corners are blocked. But the unique element is a slider on two perpendicular sides of the board; each player, in turn, moves one slider only, placing his piece at the intersection of the two sliders. Thus, the placement of pieces is restricted to one of six or eight spaces each turn. Though designed for two to four players (if you have four players, you need to get just three in a row), I fit Pixel into the category of neat, modest two-player games.

Party Games

I guess any game listed as being for up to 16 players is a party game. But Perplexcity, the Board Game, can also be played by as few as two players. The game consists of many cards, each with six different types of puzzles on them: Number Trivia, requiring you to translate clues into numbers and then provide a solution; Anagrams, in which you unscramble letters to provide the name that can be deduced from the given clue; Pot Luck—a mixture of everything from logic puzzles to riddles; Odd One Out, necessitating removing the one word or number that doesn’t fit in the list; Wordplay, like the old “oodles” and “doodles” where the placement of words with and without images leads to a phrase; and Visual, which are puzzles that depend on an image. Some of the questions and puzzles are verrrrry easy; others are fun. And, as puzzles go, you can play the game alone, ignoring the board that dictates which category question should be asked. The name Perplexcity, the Board Game, stems from the fact that Perplex-City was a whole concept of what the makers call “puzzles, mystery and intrigue.” The easiest way to explain it all is to send you to www.perplexcity.com.

Wits & Wagers (North Star Games) is touted as a trivia game that doesn’t require any knowledge of trivia, but it’s really a party game. The trivia questions are completely obscure questions whose answers are all numbers, and players, who would never be expected to know the correct number answer, bet on the other players’ response they think will be the closest. The mechanism is similar to the 1992 Spears game Wild Guess, but inventor  (and North Star president) Dominic Crapuchettes has added a betting board. Some awards and good play in the press have added to the game’s popularity.

Trivial Recruits

It has been 25 years since Trivial Pursuit started a rage for anything trivia, exploding into a new category in the marketplace, even though trivia and question-and-answer games have been around since the late 1800s. I don’t normally cover trivia games, but when one company, Southern Fox LLC, sent me 12 boxes with over 4800 cards, I had to say something. The series is called ReFraze, and authors Ann & Ron Fowler describe it as “The Name Game.” In this game of names and titles, each is reworded to serve as a clue to the original. For example, in the 50/60’s Pop Edition, “Heavenly body stream” would be the rephrasing of “Moon River”; “Henry Mancini” is provided as a hint for those who can’t immediately tune in to the answer. Your team has 30 seconds to get it (timer provided). Seven other music categories are divided into types and times, and there are three boxes of “Movies” (“Return to the days after tomorrow,” with “Michael J. Fox” as the hint, is “Back to the Future”) and “TV Shows” (“What person would like to have a ton of money,” with the hint “90’s-2000’s Game,” is “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”). Another box contains the Christian/Gospel Edition. See more at www.ReFrazeGame.com. A portion of the sales goes to support the Green Fox Project for energy conservation.

Another trivia game—though I’m sure the authors would argue that their content is anything but trivial—is The Worst Case Scenario Game of Surviving Life, based on the “Worst Game Scenario Survival Handbook” series by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht. (The game comes with a 30%-off coupon for the books at chroniclebooks.com, but expires at the end of 2007.) The game, from University Games, requires players to correctly answer survival and safety questions, all with three answer choices, in order to progress across the gameboard to the “Golden Years”—though that could mean a “Mega-Million Mansion” or “Skid Row,” among other choices. Cards enlighten you to such issues as how to tell if your child has ingested a toxic mushroom, how to collect dew for drinking, or how to stop heart palpitations—(without wanting to give away too much, I’ll tell you that the answer is not “c”: “While breathing through your nose, French kiss someone slowly.”)

Another University Games trivia entry is Grateful Dead, the Game. This is for Dead fans only. ‘Nuf said.

Repast from the Past

Sid Sackson is considered one of America’s foremost game inventors, and some of his games—Buyword, Sleuth, and I’m the Boss—have been brought back by Face2Face Games; Can’t Stop is due out in late 2007. Another Sackson classic, Executive Decision, has been released by University Games, packaged in a (slightly larger than original) bookshelf edition. Players oversee the purchase of raw materials and the manufacture and sale of finished goods, buying and selling at prices that fluctuate according to the market. In this “The original business management game,” the player who gains the most profit wins.

Another winner from days gone by is Booby Trap. Though the original wood board and pieces have been replaced by plastic, as you might expect, this 1965 classic skill-and-action game still offers the same “sproing!” action when the removal of the wrong piece in the spring-loaded board causes everything to pop off the board at a speed quicker than you’re ready for. Produced around the world over the years by many companies, this new edition is by Fundex.

Endless Games, along with its long list of reactivated TV games such as Family Feud, The Price is Right, The Newlywed Game, and Password, in addition to their other oldies Kismet, Spill and Spell and Tickle Bee, is offering a new line of old games in a new DVD format: the aforementioned The Newlywed Game and Password, plus The Match Game. If you loved the television shows, you’ll love the games. (Try The Newlywed Game among just good friends!)

Gone But Not Forgotten

There are so many games from past decades that are still cherished by, alas, a diminishing group of enthusiasts. The great two-player games—of which there are quite a few—will be covered in another article, but here I would like to bring back five oldies but goodies, all of which can be found through a meticulous search on ebay and elsewhere.

Racko should be the easiest to find, since it was re-released by Hasbro only a few years ago. Now that the game is once again relegated to the company’s past, you should try to find one of the original Milton Bradley versions from 1956 or 1966. Racko is a two- to four-player card game in which players try to get ten cards in ascending—though not necessarily sequential—order in their card rack. The first ten cards are dealt at random and placed in the slots in the rack from top to bottom. Players, in turn, then choose a hidden card from the pack or the top face-up card from the discard pile and replace one of the cards in their rack. The slots are marked so that when one player succeeds (earning 75 points), the other players score according to how many cards are in ascending order starting from the lowest slot, providing them with a score from 5 to 45. Some newer chronology games, 6 Nimmt! and the “10 Days in…(USA/Europe/Africa)” series use a similar game mechanism.

Bantu, a Parker Brothers game from 1955, is a race game said to be one of the earlier commercial games of its type not to require dice or spinner, and which, like some classic ancient games, relies only on the player’s decision as to which piece to move where when. The movement around the board of one of four pieces until reaching the finish is similar in concept to Parcheesi, except that the path offers various alternate routes along the way and the pieces can move only the number of spaces marked on the top of each piece.

Town Hall takes us back even further, to 1939. Milton Bradley’s early tile-laying game consists of 80 wood hexagonal tiles, including 39 roadways (the instructions mistakenly read 30), 1 Town Hall, and ten houses for each of up to four players. As players lay out the road pieces, one next to the other, turns in the roadway will leave a three-edged spot where a house tile can be placed. If you create the lot and don’t build, you lose the house. The player who builds the most houses wins, and the player who uses all ten houses gets the opportunity to build the Town Hall—though he has probably already scored the most points for the win. Town Hall is one of those great, simple tactical games that creates a different look on your tabletop each time you play.

Pathfinder, from 1954 by Milton Bradley, and Nile, from 1967 by E.S. Lowe, are two more tile-laying games. In Pathfinder, players do not own any of the tiles used to create multiple pathways, but they get points when they can end a path or build it to a scoring area on the gameboard. Players draw and then place three tiles at a time. In Nile, the object is also to direct the path so that it reaches (and, in this case, covers) scoring spaces on the board, but there is only one continuous path allowed. If you can’t reach a bonus square, you try to position your tiles so that they direct an opponent onto a penalty square. Players draw five tiles at random and place them on their rack, and you can play anywhere from one to all five tiles, replenishing after each turn; the tiles all have point values, so scoring is done after every move. Pathfinder is listed as from 2 to 6 players, whereas Nile is from 2 to 4—though I suspect this was more the result of including fewer tiles and racks than there being any problem with a six-player game.

All in all

Games, old and new, can foster communication, and, in some cases, incite laughter, teach patience, promote good will and understanding, test or maybe even build physical dexterity, and prepare people for accepting victory and dealing with defeat. Overall, games can provide considerable enjoyment and mental stimulation. And they make great gifts!

May all your losses be limited only to things you play. Play fair, play often.

Not to be found at a store near you

Many of the games featured here are on store shelves, some can be ordered easily on the internet, and others will require more diligent searching. But one game—a personal favorite—is nowhere to be seen in America. The game is Piranha Pedro by German games author Jens-Peter Schliemann, inventor also of, among others, the highly acclaimed, award-winning Nacht der Magier (The Night of Magicians; co-authored by Kirsten Becker). My point in mentioning it is that here is one game that is among the very best, and I’m hoping that players and publishers alike might trouble to take a look at it.

Piranha Pedro is a game easily enjoyed by more serious players, adored by casual players, and one that is quick and immensely re-playable. It’s a simultaneous-play, bluffing game, and an equalizer for adults playing with the younger set in the listed “8 years and up” range. The game consists of a board that is a grid of squares, with an island not quite in the middle. Everybody gets the same set of cards that allow you to move from one to three spaces in each of four directions. Everybody selects one card at the same time, and then Pedro is moved, following the action of each player’s card in sequence; this continues until all the cards are used. You also have little stones that you place if Pedro is headed into the water; if you run out of stones, you’re sunk! You hope you have chosen the right direction so Pedro stays on the island or on the stones that have already been placed. A move of one space is the safest, but then you don’t get the full complement of stones when they’re handed out again before the next turn; three spaces is risky, but then you receive more stones later.

What it amounts to is guessing what your opponents will do—especially the player moving immediately before you—and choosing a card that keeps you grounded and could put the player following you in deep water. And if the piranhas are lurking (if you can say piranhas lurk), then Pedro is fish food. Piranha Pedro is fun, funny, quick to learn, easy to play, and sure to leave players wanting to play again. Immediately.