Top Ten Disappointing Games

There are games that you expect to be bad and live up to those expectations.  Exploding Kittens is a hideous use of cardboard, but I could at least enjoy the pain of others as everyone tried desperately to lose first.  There are other games that are generally considered good, but aren't the type of games I like, such as Race for Galaxy or Power Grid.  The frustrating ones are the ones I expect to enjoy, but fall flat.  Onward to the negativity in no particular order.

Civilization

Past me, a person who was halfway into this game, was a big fan.  It had exploration, a tech tree, civ based special powers, and 4 distinct paths to victory.  Then we reached the end game, where two colluding players and a stupid rock paper scissors combat system destroyed my hard built empire.  I gave the game a 2nd try at 2 players, but it ended in an equally aggravating fashion.  The combat system is bad enough that an expansion completely replaced it, but I don't imagine I'll give this a third try.

Steam Park

A game I bought on sale due to a cool theme -- building an amusement park, and mostly positive reviews, but it failed before it was even ready to play! The pieces were such poor quality, an x-acto knife was necessary to separate them from their moorings.  Even the theme was disappointing, as it turns out you are building a theme park for Robots.  Mainly though, the game was just dull.  I cared so little about what other players were doing on their turns that I found myself wandering away from the game to see what else was going on.

Kingdom Builder

Kingdom Builder was Donald Vaccarino's attempt to be known as a Game Designer rather than The Dominion Designer.  Well it turns out I'm more of a Dominion fan than a Donald Vaccarino fan. Like many on this list, Kingdom Builder was just boring.  You get to do so little on your turn, and often it was obvious what to do.

Trajan

Trajan, at the time, was the top rated game by my favorite designer, so the odds were I was going to like this one.  Sometimes you roll snake eyes though.  The game revolved around a Mancala inspired mechanic that allowed you to play a series of mini-games. It was trivial to manipulate ones pieces in the Mancala section to take whatever action you wanted.  It didn't matter though as all the actions were uninspired, tedious, and disconnected.  For people who do not like Stephen Feld games, this must be what playing one of them feels like.  They still are mostly wrong, just not on this one.

Stone Age: Style is the New Goal

This expansion for Stone Age strives to add complexity to a simple game, but the additions undo the simple elegance of the original version.  In Stone Age,  one of the key decisions is to pick which resources to get, but the new trading mechanic makes it meaningless.  The other editions were either unbalanced or uninteresting.  I was hoping that Style would add life to a game I'd grown a little bored with, but it utterly failed on all accounts.

Catan Trails to Rails

A Catan spin-off with a cool looking map.  Sadly it missed much of what made the original great, like exponential growth and multiple paths to victory.  The game was repetitive and went on well past its welcome as each player did slight variations of the same thing.  There was a time where I wanted to own every Catan game, but I have seen a number of duds over the year, none more so than this one.

Great Snowball Battle:

I don't fund a lot of Kickstarters, but I couldn't resist one with a snowball fight theme.  The artwork and card names are cute, but it couldn't overcome terribly designed game mechanics.  Players ganged up on an unlucky participant or the game falls into an endless loop of attacking and running for cover.  I was tempted to try to redesign the game completely, as I do still love the theme, but I'm lazy, so I traded it away instead.

Haggis

Marketed as Tichu for 2-3 players, I was automatically intrigued.  It lost me quickly by giving players 3 wild cards every hand, resulting in a game that is based much more in short term tactical advantage and repetition than its predecessor.

Nations Dice Game

Nations is a neat game.  Nations the Dice Game takes nothing from the original beyond the name and symbolism.  Most purchases are similar and way too often you have dice that you can do nothing with.

Labyrinth The War on Terror

From a designer of Twilight Struggle, it is the first attempt to game-ify modern conflicts.   Sadly, it fails to capture what makes Twilight Struggle great.  While TS had two opponents battling back and forth, in Labyrinth the two sides feel disconnected.  More problematically,  while TS has lots of die rolls that allow luck to balance out, Labyrinth has a few crucially important ones.  Either the bomb goes off and you win or it fails and you don't, which is way too big a swing for one roll.

Dishonorable mention

Founding Fathers: Squarely in the cool theme, poor execution category.

Troyes: I didn't think I could dislike a dice game quite this much.

VS System: I enjoyed the CCG,  so was hopeful for a streamlined version, but it streamlined away the good parts.

Bananagrams: I am a big fan of both word games and bananas, so I had high hopes for this one.  I like making cool words though, and Bananagrams doesn't care as long as you do it fast.

Quarriers:  Dominion with dice.  The randomness of dice rolling added to the randomness of picking dice from a bag, made planning utterly pointless. 

What I've Been Playing: May & June

A not untypical turn in Dominion Empires

PitchCar:

PitchCar is a game involving flicking a disk around a race track.  The flicking part I can handle, but keeping it on the track is not my strong suit.  The last time I played, I finished well behind the people who showed up 20 minutes late, and that is for generous values of finished.  The host setup the track in advance and was excited to play the game again, but mostly excited to watch me play again.  I showed up late, but not quite late enough to avoid playing.

I went first, the advantage of being terrible, and flew off a side railing.  My 2nd attempt was much better; I got slightly farther before sailing into the abyss.  Other players slowly made it around the track and towards a large ramp in the middle, while my token remained directionally challenged.  Finally, with a clear track in front of me, I managed it to the next section. The next few flicks weren't great, but I made forward progress.  Meanwhile most of the other player were having trouble getting over the ramp, knocking into each other and falling off repeatedly.  I reached the base of the hill with only two players having surpassed it.  Amazingly, I made it to the top of the ramp on my first shot.  Going down the other side took a little longer, but the people in front of me were going slowly, and the ones behind me were still stuck.  I made it around the final turns and into the final straightaway while others still struggled.  I centered myself with a short flick and then sailed over the final railing to land on the edge of the track with half my token hovering over nothing.   I finished an astonishing 2nd, just ahead of the person who played the whole game while holding a baby.  It may have been my greatest gaming achievement.
QuarterMaster General,

A 90 minute, 6 player, World War two game, where players team up as the Allies and Axis.  The 90 minute time-frame makes it much more playable than most Axis vs Allies type games, but it did lose something in the distillation.  You can only play 1 card a turn, so often you are going back and forth with an opponent without making any progress.  For particular players, you can even get stuck with little to do on your turns.  Given the positive reviews, I'd try it again, but I wasn't especially enamored with it.

Millenium Blades:

A game that was designed to feel like collecting a collectible card game without the need to take out a second mortgage.  Players buy packs (the game uses stacks of money for individual bills which is great), and build decks and collections to compete in in-game tournaments.  For better or worse, it captures that feel very much, both in the excitement and frustrations.  Despite the happy nostalgia, the game overall though felt long and overwhelming, with players receiving too many cards to be able to analyze them all.  More problematic was that the in-game tournaments were dull and lacked complex decisions or interactions.  Making cool decks isn't that much fun if you don't care about the deck you are making.  Like many Kickstarter games, the concept was great, but the execution needs some work.

Dominion Empires:

The 10th Dominion expansion, and the 2nd one after the "last" expansion, is every bit as good as its predecessors.   The set features a number of new and expanded concepts such as events, landmark cards (items that give/take away points for achieving certain things), gathering cards (cards that collect victory tokens), and debt (getting cards and paying for them later).  The quality of the game components are as good as they have ever been, with heavy and shiny new victory and debt tokens.

As with other recent sets, I hosted a tournament to get to play a bunch of games with recommended sets.   9 people came, which is a nice number for such things.  I enjoyed how the new cards changed player goals turning normal Dominion decision making on its head.  Alas I fell short in the tourney, needing 1 more copper to win a decisive qualifying match.  We did get our fifth different tournament winner in five tries, which is neat.   I have played a number of games of it since with my wife who is a big fan of the set.   She has built super-turns from cards such as the Villa (a card in the village family that allows a player to jump back to the action phase from the buying one.) and Royal Blacksmith (A debt card that lets you draw 5 cards and requires discarding coppers).  She has won a number of these games quite handily, but I did heroically buy the last two provinces and a duchy in one such contest to lose 63-32.

Jaipur:

Jaipur is a popular two player card game where players buy, sell, and trade gems and camels.  I played it first online and enjoyed having simple turns that still had multiple compelling options.  I bought a copy in a game store in my wife's hometown though that was partially to support a neat looking store while getting something that would fit in a suitcase.  I still haven't figured how much of the game is skill vs luck, but I'm curious to keep exploring.  My initial opponents were not as enamored with the game though, so I might have some difficulty finding opponents.

Above and Below:

I wanted to try Above and Below mostly because it looked pretty.  And pretty it was, though it could have used clearer visuals to distinguish between different types of cards.  The game combines an action selection game with a story telling one.  Players can explore the "below" which result in mini choose your own adventure style adventuring.  The game had some interesting concepts and fun stories, but ultimately lacked focus and ended before much could be accomplished.  For example, there was a nice tension between using common resources early to get money, or saving them for later to maximize points, but you got so few resources until the end that it didn't matter all that much.  The stories were amusing but repetitive, always having similar requirements and rewards.

Quadropolis:

Days of Wonder's latest production is a light-ish tile laying game where players draft tiles and place them in a tableau, scoring points for getting combinations of buildings together.  At times drafting choices were severely limited or unimportant, while at other points players were overwhelmed with information.  Compared to Between Two Cities, it had more interesting scoring rules, but was slower and accommodated less players.   I'd be interested in trying how the advance rules changed the dynamics of the game.
 

Alhambra

A beautiful, completely stuck, Alhambra

Most of my Alhambra sessions can be broken down into two parts.

Part 1. Look at my awesome wall surrounding my Alhambra

Part 2.  Crap I don't have any legal places to build anything.

Publisher:

Queen Games

Designer:

Dirk Henn

Elevator Pitch:

You are building an Alhambra.  Each turn you take money or buy land tiles with exact purchases allowing for extra turns.  Tiles get added to your Alhambra in a way that aligns walls.  Three times throughout the games players score based on their wall size and by having majorities in each land types.

Personal Impression:

There are plenty of games that I adore, but rarely get to play.  Alhambra is kind of the inverse.  I enjoy it just fine, but am never dying to get a game in.  However, it fits a lot of groups and situations well, so I end up suggesting and playing it quite often, and am glad to have it in my collection.

Good for People who Grew up Playing with

Blocks

  

Ease of Learning:

Players have at most 9 possible actions they can take on a turn, but even that overstates the complexity.  Usually all a player needs to decide is if they want to overpay for a building and if not which money they want to take.  New players should be able to get into the flow of the game very quickly and be able to score competitively in their first couple games.

Fidgety Index

Well you get tiles, but you can’t move them.  Besides that, you get one lousy game piece whose only purpose is to remind you what color you are.

Universal Theme:

You get to build stuff which is fun.  However, given that the game was able to be re-themed to New York without any significant changes, shows the theme isn’t too strong.

Player Count and Length:

2-6 though the 2 player game requires the use of a dummy player, which is a little awkward  The game can also be frustrating at higher player counts as the cards you want often disappear before your turn.  Sweet spot is around 4. The game moves fast and is playable in 45 minutes of so regardless of player count.

Expansions:

There are currently 6 main expansion to Alhambra and a couple of promos.  Each expansion contains a few modules that can used separately or in conjunction.  You can combine modules from different expansions, though some are mutually exclusive. Most individual modules have a small impact on the game.  Generally when we have access to all of the expansions, we roll a d20 to choose a few modules to add to increase variety.

Alhambra the Big Box: contains the first five expansions, The Vizier’s Favor, The City Gates, The Thief’s Turn, The Treasure, Chamber, and Power of The Sultan, along with the base game.  If you are interested in the expansion the Big Box is a much more economical option than buying the expansions separately.  Otherwise just purchase the ones that sound most interesting to you.  

Spin Offs:

New York is Alhambra re-themed with Manhattan skyscrapers replacing Spanish architecture.  It is the same game, albeit it one which doesn’t have all those expansions.

Granada is another similar game with slightly more complex rules.

There is also an Alhambra dice game and an Alhambra card game, though neither has been as well received.

Introducing the Game to New Gamers: 

Watch new players to make sure they don’t build themselves into a corner.  Suggest good tiles for them.

Apps:

There is a universal app for the iphone/ipad, but I have not gotten it yet.  The reviews have been poor mainly due to bugs and crashes, and it hasn't been updated in quite a while.

Links:

Gateway Game Index

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Tales of Gaming Part 1: World at War

I didn't play a lot of wars games growing up. There was the occasional game of Risk, or Castle Risk, its speedier cousin, but nothing complex. It wasn't until I go to college and I joined the Medieval College Society that I came in contact with War Gamers. Having lots of time on my hands and loving all things epic, this held great appeal for me.

I never did figure out what was Medieval about the society, but I did later become president for failing to show up to elections so I couldn't say no.

Gathered in our cramped student office, the first war game I played was World at War . World at War was an Axis and Allies spin-off that adds country specific rules and costs to increase Historical accuracy.  For example, the U.S. And Russia aren't allowed to declare war until they are attacked or a certain number of turns have passed while Japan can make one sneak attack during the game, which basically meant they could attack twice in a row.

Looking at the game now on BGG, it has the sort of mix of reviews you would expect from a game that was deeply flawed but filled many with nostalgia.    My favorite comment, “My one and only play almost ended in a fist fight. I was being a dick. I see that now. “ This didn't occur in our group, but it certainly could have.

I played the U.S., so I had lots of money and little to do. I loaned what I could to Britain, and spent the rest buying random stuff, waiting for Japan to attack or me to figure out some sort of strategy. So I got a fighter here, a destroyer there, and ooh how bout a nice shiny battleship. Meanwhile Japan is slowly sailing around me, avoiding any conflict that would allow me to declare war, and heading North towards Britain.

An hour or two in, Getting kind of bored with being unable participate in battles, I took a bathroom break. The following is recreation of the conversation that occurred next.

"Japan attacked."

"Oh great. How is Britain doing?"

"No... Japan attacked you."

"Oh, okay. How is my fleet doing?"

"No... Japan slipped around your fleet, invaded the Eastern U.S. Through the Gulf of Mexico, took it over, and are now using their sneak attack to attcak the Western U.S. And win the game."

And that is how,“Damn you to Hell for invading the U.S. Through Texas!!” became a greeting.

Wit and Wagers

The Wit and Wagers Layout.  Irrelevant math equations are not required, but also are not not required

Wit and Wagers is a trivia game that fixes the genre’s biggest problem: having to know stuff.  In this game it is much better to have a wife who has lots of random knowledge and a terrible poker face.

  
Publisher:

North Star Games

Designer:

Dominic Crapuchettes

Elevator Pitch:

A player reads a trivia question that will have a numerical answer.  Each player writes down an answer on a card, usually a complete guess, and then flips them over.  The answers are revealed and each player bets on which answer is closest without going over (Price is Right rules).  The process repeats for 6 more rounds where questions from different categories are asked.    

Personal Impression:

I don’t have a good memory for details, so trivia games aren’t my strong suit.  Wit and Wagers asks questions I shouldn’t remember, which makes for a much more enjoyable experience.  Sure I am still sometimes off on questions by several magnitudes.  Sometimes though, I know something random, which is pretty exciting.

Good for People who Grew up Playing

Trivial Pursuit

  

Ease of Learning:

Very simple.  Shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to get everyone on board.  The most difficult part is remembering which chips count for which value.

Fidgety Index

You get an erasable marker and a small white board to draw on.  Have at it. (Get your own erasers.  A scrap of a paper towel will do, but we’ve found great success with pom-pom balls from the craft store.)  

Universal Theme:

Like most trivia games, doesn’t really bother with the concept of theme.

Player Count and Length:

3-7 though can it go higher if you play in teams.  At any count it is fast to play and shouldn’t take more than half an hour to get through.

Expansions:

The Expansion Pack offers more questions when you use up the original ones.

Spin Offs:

Wit & Wagers Family makes the game more family friendly, not that the original isn’t.  It removes the gambling aspect of the game, which to me is a pretty vital part.

Wit & Wager Party takes the lighter questions from the expansion pack and makes a game of it.  Not sure I see the point of this one either, but it is likewise supposed to be more kid friendly.

Introducing the Game to New Gamers: 

No advice needed here.   Experience, beyond remembering answers, is not helpful.

Apps:

Given the social nature of the game, making a good app for Wit and Wagers is a challenge.  The app created is a noble effort.  The ai uses players’ answers to questions as ai answers in future games.  So you can play against your friends, but not in real time, which limits the effect.

Links:

Gateway Game Index

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Blog Mailbag: Take That

Ooh I got mail. Well, I got a comment, which caused me to get an e-mail notification, so close enough. This one didn't even tell me I screwed something up (though I appreciate those comments too).  Now I can do a mailbag post!

“I have mixed feelings for Small World. Just a few years ago I couldn't get enough of Vinci, Small World, and (Brief) History of the World. Now I think the gang up on the leader mechanic is souring me to the game - to the point where I'm thinking of getting rid of some/all of those.  “

I mostly agree. Attack the leader is definitely not my favorite mechanic and over time it is becoming increasingly more so. In these games I feel like my decisions are meaningless. All I'm really trying to do is convince the rest of the players that I'm not winning, so they go after someone else. The person who deflects best wins.

When I hear of upcoming games that use this mechanic, I'm less likely to give them a try.   It is often just a lazy design choice.   You don't need to ensure a game is balanced and fair if you have a strong "take that*" mechanic, because the players will just take care of it themselves. Munchkin is a prominent example of this with uber powerful cards and completely worthless ones. Munchkin at least has humor, but many don't even have that.

Take that is a game mechanic where players can choose to attack an opponent of their choice.  This lets players gang up on the perceived leader.

Still, I think "take that" games can be enjoyable.   They can work well when the skill level of players is vastly different. I can make optimum decisions without worrying I'll crush new players. They just bring me down if I get ahead.  I don't own many "take that" games, but they occasionally come in handy.

They have to be really good though, which for me means adhering to the below rules.

1. It is fairly simple. Don't make my head hurt optimizing moves, if they don't really matter.
2. It is relatively short. Nothing makes me despise a game a 3+ hour game that is decided at the end by a player being ganged up on.
3. You can do fun stuff. Since efficiency isn't important, at least let me have some neat plays.
4. There is a drawback to always attacking the player in front.  If a player has to give up something to attack the leader, it will vastly reduce the frequency of attacks.
5. Being attacked can cost you victory points, but doesn't cause you to be stuck. I don't want to pass 3 consecutive turns waiting to be able to play.

Small World passes these tests for me. It doesn't take too long and turns don't require that much thought. You can find interesting combos regardless of how other players are treating you.  Sometimes attacking the leader is an optimum move for an individual player, but sometimes it will cost you excess units.  If your race gets too beaten up, you can always put it into decline and get a new one, so you are never stuck.  Vinci, and though I haven't played it, I'm sure Brief History, would fail #2.

Lastly, I think it can be an important mechanic for legacy games.  Since it is difficult to balance a series of games dependent upon each other, "take that" can be an important tool.  Risk Legacy heavily used "take that" to keep the game fair, while players took the design in any number of ways.  Pandemic Legacy, as a co-op, didn't have that option, so it tightly controlled the story limiting the impact of player decisions.  While I'm enjoying Pandemic Legacy, it feels like the game is playing the players rather than the other way around as in Risk.  I prefer the Risk model, but to do so, some degree of "take that" might be necessary to keep wild shifts balanced.  Seafall sounds like it will be somewhere between its predecessors, so will see how that goes.

Codenames

A Codename board

Codenames arrived in 2015 and has quickly taken its place in the pantheon of great social games.  I usually don’t get excited about new games until I get to play them, but Codenames was an exception. I’ve been looking for a good word game for a while and Codenames had gotten rave reviews from the start.  Vlaada Chvatel has made some of my favorite games though none was anything like Codenames or any of his others for that matter.  When I spotted the game brought to a party*, I was desperate to play.  I quickly explained the game rules, which really confused people shortly thereafter when I told them I hadn’t played before.

*Yes, this is the kind of parties I go to.

  
Publisher:

Czech Games

Designer:

Vlaada Chvatil

Elevator Pitch:

There is a grid of 25 words where 8 or 9 belong to a red team and a blue team.  The rest of the words are neutral except one assassin which results in instant loss.  Taking turns, a Spymaster says a single word to clue a selected number of words of their color.  For example, a spymaster might say apple (3) to clue New York, lemon, and pie, in the picture above. Field Operatives on the spymaster’s team guess words from the 25 until they run out of selections, pass  or are wrong, and the play passes over to the other team. First team to have all their words guessed without choosing the assassin wins.

Personal Impression:

It would be hard to match the hype I had given Codenames, but the game absolutely delivered.  Games are meant to be fun and everything about Codenames is fun.  It is fun to give clever clues matching disparate words with multiple meanings, only to be thwarted by your team’s inability to understand your brilliance, or more often, missing that different word was even more appropriate for my clue.  It is fun to discuss which word has been clued, while the spymaster sits silently exasperated at your logic just waiting to burst.  If it fun to watch the opposing team guess as you explain how every answer, no matter how absurd, would be completely appropriate.  It is fun to kibitz the game, playing along or laughing at participants.  And it is fun to tell stories of after, like the time robot clued rock and sock, or when in a player’s first game they happily called Tennis (3) only realizing their mistake when Court, the overlooked assassin was selected.

Good for People who Grew up Playing

Password or other word games

  

Ease of Learning:

Very simple to understand what you are trying to do.  There may be some questions on gameflow or the legality of plays, but they can be answered as you go along.  Worst case scenario a round gets screwed up and you just begin again.

Fidgety Index

Nothing to play with, but you can always heckle your opposition on their turn to pass the time.  Just be careful not to accidentally give them any good ideas.

Universal Theme:

Spymasters are competing to contact all of their agents first.  It is a pretty nonsensical theme that has absolutely no effect on game-play.

Player Count and Length:

2-8+  There is a co-op version to play with 2 or 3 which works okay if you aren’t too concerned about scoring.   With at least 4 players you can divide into teams with at least one spymaster and one guesser per side.  After that just keep adding to teams.  You can play with any number, but after you hit 8-10, teams will start getting unwieldy.  A round takes about 15 minutes, so length is a question of how many rounds you wish to play.

Expansions:

None yet, though Codename: Pictures is coming.

Spin Offs:

No official ones out yet, though Codenames with Dixit cards works surprisingly well.  You feel just as helpless.

Introducing the Game to New Gamers: 

Do a couple of practice words.  Make sure they play a couple rounds before they become a spymaster. Encourage clues that go for multiple words.

Apps:

No app to play the game yet, but there is a companion app that helps with selecting teams and setup.  You can also play the game through forums. An official app is in the works, and looks pretty neat.

Links:

Gateway Game Index

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