Akoha: a game or a social experiment?

The social game Akoha is finally open for beta. I promptly ordered a VIP starter kit. In huge contrast to my Titan pre-order, I got my decks in around 2 weeks' time.

So how do you play this game? You can start by purchasing a deck (the ones pictured on the right) from the Akoha Store and creating an account at their web site. Then you would want to be nice to your friends. (You are always nice to your friends, aren't you?) Buy them a cup of coffee. Make them smile. Give them a small surprise gift. Once you accomplished that, you need to give them the card that described your missions. They will be able to create Akoha accounts like you did (no purchase necessary) and confirm that your mission was a success. Now, the mission is theirs...

As your cards passed from networks to networks, you will be able to view their trails on Akoha's mission logs and see how you have made this world a (slightly) better place. Once you used up your mission cards, you will also be able to print and play new missions from their website. If you are creative, you can also create new missions.

Will this project be killed by the Credit Crunch? I sincerely hope this social experiment will be a success.

Memoir '44 : 依啲咪叫搶錢囉

一張地圖賣你三百幾蚊!

不過……個袋又幾靚既……

Boardgame news: the renewed TITAN map

Mike Doyle has posted, in his blog, the (unfinished) revised map of Valley Game's TITAN reprint.

Stainless Steel Playing Cards (!!)

Someone made a deck of stainless steel playing cards, which you can purchase at £195 (HK$3000)

via: Yehuda

StarCraft 2: "Hell, it's about time"

今年是StarCraft年：首先是FFG的Starcraft: the Board Game預定今年推出。其次是Blizzard的StarCraft 2終於有聲啦！雖然發售日還沒有，但有screenshot總好過甚麼都沒有…又要儲錢買新display card了。右圖是本周新圖之一。

Dilbert: the Board Game

Dilbert會否被拍成真人電影就不知道，不過原來有boardgame的。在Dilbert: the Board Game裡你是Dilbert, Alice, Wally, Asok等其中一人。目的很簡單，只要成為最『快樂』的一個就可以了！每回合都有新的痛苦project派發給你，大家則想辦法將project殺掉。而老細搵你當然掉頭走啦！

via: Boardgame News

Transformers 3D Battle-Card Game

三月二十日公佈的消息：孩之寶旗下的Wizards of the Coast 將於六月推出變形金剛collectible game

via: GamingReport.com

新版大富翁

大富翁又出新版了！今次的六款其中一款是不用banker的"Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition"。用計數機跟扣數咭，很高貴。
註：上圖是在about.com偷的

Buyword

不喜歡拼字遊戲的我，最近在Jolly Thinkers與朋友玩了兩局Sid Sackson寫的Buyword。第一次玩這遊戲是在大學同學Ｔ家中。他推介這個遊戲有兩個原因：一是他很喜歡拼字遊戲，二是這遊戲跟其他遊戲不一樣，不要求玩者有豐富的字彙。

盒裡有108個字母，依常用值分為1至4分。遊戲開始大家有$200 Buyword Bucks (錢)，每回合有機會買入兩至五個字母，售價是字母點數的平方值。買完字母當然是砌字，賣字所得的錢也是點數的平方。例：上圖BUYWORD這七個字共13點，價錢是13x13=$169。所有字母派發完後，錢最多的勝出！有興趣的話，遊戲規則在Face2Face的遊戲介紹就能找到。

P.S. B字在遊戲中實為3分字母
P.P.S. BUYWORD不是一個英文字；如果BUY、WORD分成兩個字賣的話則是$49+$49
P.P.P.S. 幾個月沒看甚麼電影，這個blog還是改名算了。

Sudoku Hex by Dr Reiner Knizia

Our popular game designer Dr Knizia just posted a free Sudoku variant on Knizia @ Convivium. You can download and print Sudoku Hex! PDF rules to play. It would be nice if you have a copy of Attika.

Source: Boardgame News

"愛上Board Games"的樓上café - Jolly Thinkers

早前聽朋友介紹，最近在旺角新世紀廣場附近新開了一間以德式桌上遊戲為主題的小店，今晚剛好有空跟他們上去一聚。店子很小，由一個唐樓單位改裝而成。一進門就看見滿架讓客人自由取用的遊戲，還有六點已經開始『打躉』、正在玩Anno 1503的幾位朋友。我點了一客肉醬意粉($52)及紅豆刨冰($32)。意粉的水準不錯，而能在炎夏吃到美味的刨冰實在很幸福！之後玩了兩局朋友帶來的Havoc。

店的名字叫Jolly Thinkers，地址是旺角太子道西182-184號金寶樓1樓C座。稍後有機會再光顧，問過店主後可能拍一兩張照片再作詳細介紹。

The Da Vinci Code

After getting the cat I have been quite slack on movie posts. This situation will improve, if she continues to bite me regularly. I am confining her to jail in the living room and lock myself in my bedroom with the computer. (Who is the prisoner? Me or her?) Back to topic.

The Book

I borrowed a copy of the book from a friend and finished it in 4 days. Not because it was that good, but because I wanted to complete the book before going for the movie. No it was not bad. In the first half before Langdon & Co. went to London it was rather nice, but after that it decayed into a poor imitation of a spy novel. There is one thing I really hate: creating myth that looks like fact. Dan Brown kept throwing lots of unrelated information at us and try showing us how they are related, but he did not really do his research carefully. It really helps to provide a small section of clarifation, like Chevalier's historical fictions.

The Movie with minor spoiler alert

I have repeatedly seen negative reviews from those who have read and loved the book, because it turned a suspense story into an action flick, because it changed the story too much, because they picked Tom Hanks to play Robert Langdon...

It was not as bad as I thought. Lots were changed in the movie but many of them are good changes. In the novel, there is only one bad guy. Sir Teabing the crazy, fanatic supporter of the sacred feminine. Captain Fache was a good guy from beginning to end; Bishop Aringarosa was simply tricked into believing what he should not and was trying to correct his mistakes by confessing to Fache; Silas the albino was a misguided "angel"; The Church paid Opus Dei only for a peaceful "divorce". In the movie the roles have been changed: The Church and the Bishop were conspiring to destroy the Priory of Sion, with the Church supplying cash and Aringarosa supplying the soldier, only to find themselves cheated by Leabing. Fache was a poor stupid cop who believed the lies of Aringarosa. I believe this story made more sense than the original.

There is, however, something terribly wrong with the ending. 2000 years of document lying in the Rosslyn Chapel? Believers rushing out of nowhere to see the last descendant of Jesus Christ? DNA analysis ruined because the body could not be found? They should have used the more opaque ending from the novel: An old woman, a young man and old photos. Nice family gatherings. Words that they chose to trust with faith.

Impressions on The Da Vinci Code: 5/10, because I hate how the ending was mangled.

You might also be interested in this MTV Awards parody.

The Boardgame

Da Vinci Code is the German edition of the 2-4 player deduction game CODA. In this Japanese designed game there are 26 tiles of 2 colours, out of which 2 special tiles are reserved for the advanced game only. Before game begins, you pick 3 to 4 tiles randomly and order them facing you in ascending numeric order, where black tiles are placed before whites in case of a tie. When your turn comes, you pick up one of the remaining tiles, then try to guess ("attack") the number on one of another players' tiles. If you guessed correctly, the "defending" player turns that tile around for everyone to see and you make attack again. If you were wrong, you turn your tile over and your turn ends immediately. The game ends when only one player has any unrevealed tiles, who is declared the winner.

Is it any good? I am not really a fan of deduction games, but I still find it entertaining. Unlike the more American styled games such as Clue, it is simple, easy to explain and short. I have not played it enough to like it, but I will be willing to play it again if given the opportunity.


P.S. I completed Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring in 2 days. It was that good.

Punk; random thoughts through the eyes of an amateur

As someone who have absolutely no knowledge of the punk culture, I love listening to punk music.

Or so I thought.

When I buy a CD, it is often more about buying than using. After I ripped them to MP3 files or downloaded music from the net, (yes I am a pirate, as are about 10 million others; sue me) usually I just play them a few times and stash them away. There are some songs that I seem to prefer over the others, songs that I keep playing from time to time, again and again. Most of them (loosely) punk.

Or so I thought.

So who are they? What have I listened to since the last month that has something to do with punk?

Avril Lavigne
Kuroyume (黒夢)
LUNA SEA
Simple Plan
System of a down

Some are true pop/rock punk bands. Some are J-Rock / Visual Kei groups with punk/goth influence. Some are probably just teen-pop singers posing punk looks.

Let's just say... I love pop punk music, or punk wannabes who joined major record labels.

Or so I thought. I do not know anymore.

I know nothing... ™


The Wolf, again

Above is the Anarcho-punk symbol which is also embedded in the Damage Control banner. Fellow boardgamer readers, (as if I had any) does this symbol ring any bells? Guess not. What if we rotate the symbol by 180 degrees and erase a few pixels at the center? Does it look familiar now?

The inversed symbol is a clan symbol in White Wolf's now defunct Vampire: the Masquerade RPG and associated products. What seemed like a distorted feline face in a gothic make-up is the symbol of clan Brujah, the muscle of the Camarilla. It is good to know the punk warrior symbol had a deep history - even with some misconception. I know punks used to be poor, jobless, dumpster-diving dropouts unacccepted by the society, but anarcho-punks are not the angry warriors as Brujahs are portrayed in the story, or are they?

I wonder if any other seemingly meaningless symbols have meaningful real-life origins. Say, why did they choose the Egyptian Ankh, symbol of life, as the Caitiff clan symbol?

Oraklos

Can 5 people play a game by staring at wooden cubes scattered randomly on the table? (see photo on right) You can. And it could be a very nice one.

Through a friend's group order I got a copy of Oraklos from Funagain Games during a clearance sale. At USD $5, it is truely a bargain and I can bypass the usual restrictions, that I must have read the rules before getting a copy.

Oraklos is designed by Tamara Jannink and Joris Wiersinga and published by Splotter Spellen, a small Dutch boardgame company. The components the usual Splotter quality: bad but functional. The box smells like old cardboard. The ink did not coat that well, giving a rough surface and cards were tied using rubberbands. Limited budgets I suppose.

The true gem, as I have experienced from Antiquity, lies solely in the rulebook. In Oraklos, one player throws about 20 colored cubes onto the table. Then players attempts to locate quadrilaterals whose corners match the symbols on one of the 3 hint cards they have. There is a twist: if you look closely enough you will notice the cubes all have holes. Quads with holes on top do not count as a valid pattern. As do quads which enclose or touch any other cubes.

For game test purposes, we played a standard game to completion last night. Finding a valid pattern was more difficult than I thought, especially patterns which 3 different colours. As far as I know, all players seem to have enjoyed the game. The game took around 30 minutes, double the printed playtime, but I did not find it boring, and I wish to play it again real soon.

Vampires and Underworld: Evolution

I watched 2 movies last Sunday: V for Vendetta and then Underworld: Evolution.

The sequel to Underworld was a disappointment even though I went without much expectation, but to explain that you have to know a little bit about the story and my limited, game influenced knowledge of vampires. I am no expert (nor do I want to be) in the study of vampires, so please allow for omissions and incorrect information. Suggestions are welcomed: please post a comment if you have corrections to make.

(warning: lengthy with spoilers to Underworld)

Vampires, old and new

The image of vampires often depends on the literature. In the older days, folklore vampires were enemies to humanity. They were hideous, monstrous entities which fly into villages at night, killing livestock and villagers. In the recent years, vampires have been highly romanticized, thanks to movie makers and fiction writers. Gratified by an eternal life yet cursed with an insatiable hunger, intelligent yet tempered with dementia, swift and strong but turn to dust the moment they see sunlight, vampires have become a symbol of a conflicted personality, an excellent tool to inject tormented love and hate into a story.

Doomed to live forever in solitude, a "romanticized" vampire may be tempted to create a family of his own. The exact procedure differs from story to story, but it usually requires the victim to drink some of the vampire's blood, completing a bond between the two individuals.

The bond of blood

Blood is the essence of life. It is often the symbol of strength and knowledge. By consuming blood from a vampire one inherits the immortality and vampiric strength from the master. This means that vampiric abilities may dilute along the bloodline. In some settings, the chain of blood also guarantees obedience to the creator. The creator may require his creations drink his blood regularly to maintain dominance. The transfer of blood may have been an euphemism for sexual activities. Afterall, both are about the transfer of bodily fluids.... but this is suppsed to be a movie review so I would just leave it.

Underworld, the world beneath our own

As bloodlines grow into networks, vampires must feed carefully without exposing their tracks. The entire society must stay underground and remain hidden from the commons or an inquisition will begin to claim their heads. This is the core story of "Vampire: the Masquerade", a story-telling game of gothic horror by the game company White Wolf. Believe it or not, I first knew of the movie through a press release they issued. I doubt any of you would care, so I would just continue to the story of Underworld.

Underworld was first promoted as a Romeo and Juliet story in a gothic world. The Capulets are played by the "Death Dealers", a highly organized society of vampires and the Montagues by the "Lycans", a raging group of werewolves. For reasons not initially known, they have been fighting each other for centuries. Now the whole Underworld have their eyes set on a young human named Michael Corvin. When the story unfolds, it is known that Michael is a descendent of Alexander Corvinus, the father to all vampires and werewolves. Michael has been bitten by a werewolf and will be killed by any vampire. Selene, herself a vampire, need to fight against both sides to save his boyfriend.

While I am not very fond of the excessive CG scenes, I found the movie entertaining enough. The two main plots: a vampire in love with an enemy, and an experiment to create a stronger specie were merged nicely. The integration of vampire and werewolf myths and the futuristic society could have been better, but is not too bad. The photography was very nice.

Impressions on Underworld: 6/10

The Evolution that evolved into nothingness

The story of Underworld: Evolution starts right after the previous story ends. Michael is now a stronger (or so they claim) vampire-werewolf hybrid but the elder vampire Marcus has awakened. He is after Selene for Lucian's necklace.

Why do I not like it? I just need to ask one question: do you like it if a love story turns into a DOOM like shooting game? Apparently all the Death Dealers and Lycans have been wiped out in the last movie. Now it is all about Selene, Michael, some humans and Marcus the huge, mean monster with no personality. A dumb fight-or-die survival thriller.

In Underworld they made some effort sticking to the general vampire and lycanthrope rules while making a visually appealing Hollywood movie. All the impressions and contrasts have been lost in the sequel. Nor did they keep the contract of blood which made vampire stories so fascinating. In the Underworld, blood represents memory but apparently not strength. If this is true, how could the wise but fragile Corvinus have helped by letting Selene drink his blood?

In a Hollywood movie the amount of female body displayed is often inversely proportional to movie quality. Seeing Kate Beckinsales' pelvis does not help improve the rating; instead it reminds me how bad this movie is.

Impressions on Underworld: Evolution: 4/10

Russian Solitaire: a game I learnt from my grandma

Gerald made an interesting post in Gone Gaming: Gaming with a Grandma.

My grandma did not often play games with me, but she taught me some solitaires. One of which she often played was Russian Solitaire, a variant of Yukon. Rules to the game as follows:

Setup

A standard 52 card deck is used. 28 cards are first dealt in 7 columns. The first column has 1 card, the second has 2, and so on. The last card in each column is dealt face up. Then, 4 cards are dealt to each of the latter 6 columns.

The Game

The goal is to remove all the cards from the columns into 4 "foundation" piles, starting from Aces and ending with Kings. A face-up card, and all the cards covering it, may be moved to another column when the top-most card in the destination column is in sequence and of the same suit.



If a face-down card is exposed as a result, it is immediately turned over.


Whenever the lowest card of any suit is exposed, you remove it and they form the "foundation piles".
When a column is emptied, you may remove part of another column to create a new column, exposing another card. In the standard Russian Solitaire, only Kings may start a column. In my grandma's variant, you may start a column with any card, which makes the game a little bit easier, but still more difficult than the standard Yukon or Klondike.

Game end

You win when you empty all 7 columns by sorting them into 4 suits; you lose when you have no legal play before emptying the columns.

Zoch auf der Hong Kong Toy Fair

Zoch Verlag, a german boardgame company, will be coming to Hongkong for the first time. The exhibition will be held on the 10th-13th January, 2006 in HKCEC.

Pickomino

Imagine that you are at a chicken BBQ party, and you need to get some roasted worms for your chicken (yuck). Your goal is to get more worms than everyone else...

Pickomino (also known as Heckmeck am Bratwurmeck) is a small dice game designed by Reiner Knizia, published by Zoch Verlag and Rio Grande Games. It is a little push-your-luck dice game, where you are given 8 special dice when your turn comes. Each time you roll your dice you have to keep all the dice showing one (and only one) of the 6 numbers of which you do not yet have. If you roll a sum of 21-24 you get to keep one of the 1-worm tiles. 25-28, 2 worms, 29-32, 3 worms, 33-36 voila, you get 4 worms at once! If you happen to roll the exact amount someone did, you get his/her worms instead.

On the left is the BSW interface of Pickomino. That was a 4-player game. Unlucky day for me! In the first round someone took the 4-worm tile for 36. Surprisingly, I won that game.

In a glance the game looks very very simple, but after playing a few games online I begin to realize there are lots of decision to make. What do you do when you are lagging behind? The game will end when all the "public" tiles are gone, so you sometimes have to pick an opponent's tile just to prevent the game from ending too soon. That in turn means you have to engineer your dice results to match exactly one of the opponents' face up tiles. No, it is not a game where you roll the dice and hope for the best. Luck plays an important part, but it also requires you to find a strategy and pick your dice so that your strategy work. I would definitely get a copy if it were cheaper.

Circus Flohcati

（友人說寫中文較好，所以今天轉中文台）

Circus Flohcati 是一個很簡單的紙牌遊戲，作者是Reiner Knizia。我想都沒有哪個還在玩圖版遊戲的現代人不知道他是誰吧？他是一個德國出生的數學博士。我不清楚他主修哪科，不過從他對骰子的著迷程度－－他寫了一本書講骰子的，叫Dice Games Properly Explained－－應與或然率有點關係吧？他設計的遊戲怕超過100，肯定是產量最多的一人。但產量多不代表質素參差，相反很多都是高質素的作品，例如最近再版的Ra 就是。想知更多可到wikipedia 找Reiner Knizia 的簡介。他寫的遊戲也沒有特定的觀眾，其中有幾分鐘能玩完、消磨時間用的家庭遊戲，也有要玩長時間、花腦力的重型遊戲。

Circus Flohcati 就是一個十分簡單的遊戲，全盒只有多種語言印製的規則跟89張卡片，可供三至五人同玩。卡片分十種顏色，０至７各一張，另九張特別功能牌。早幾天友人新買了一盒，當然先拿來玩一下。規則很簡單，到你的時候選一張卡拿上手，如果沒有合意的卡則可以抽卡放在枱上，直至有你想要的卡為至。但要留意，如果你抽的卡跟枱上的顏色相同，你的回合則立即完結。當遊戲完結時你手上的卡每種顏色最高分的一張加起來就是你的分數。那拿０不是沒有人會拿？遊戲當然沒這麼簡單，還有一種特別的計分方式：只要把三張同數字的牌丟到枱上，不管面值多少都變成10分。

跟Can't Stop一樣，Circus Flohcati是一個簡單的push your luck遊戲。規則雖簡單但要思考的其實也很多：枱面上有三張１、一張２、一張４，你要拿牌還是再開下去？如果拿的話，要拿１、２、還是４？自己手上的牌跟已知對手手上的牌對你有影響嗎？這要留玩者自己思考了。


以中文寫一些不是中國人的東西實在很麻煩。問題：push your luck 中文怎譯？

World in War: Axis and Allies revisited

Time for some game reviews and session reports.

I am not really a big fan of Axis and Allies but I have seen some very positive review on spielfrieks, which also influenced my decision to buy Antiquity. The system of World in War: Combined Arms 1939-1945 seems innovative enough for the big money it costs. Three weeks ago I received the big parcel from Delayed Reactions including World in War and a couple of other games I bought. Surely I must give them a try, so I brought them to the last two saturday gatherings at Poly University of Hong Kong.

It turns out I have keen instincts judging games. In the last two weeks we have played 4 games. The first three were more like a mess, but with a more sensible opponent, the fourth was a blast.

In was a 2-player game. In that game I was playing Germany with the suggested variant of an extra Western Powers submarine. My opponent decided very early that France cannot be defended, and would instead carry out a sea blockade on every port his ships could reach. The game ended at turn 4 (or perhaps it was turn 5) because it was already midnight with a dozen hungry eyes watching us play. When we pack the game, Germany had about 19 production points and Allied around 15. I already had control of the whole central-western Europe and is pushing towards Russia, but the supply lines are long and I had no control of the sea. I probably cannot attack fast enough before UK could regroup and dump units in western Europe in the future turns.

The outcome was surprisingly close to real history. Western powers occupying the sea while German troops are roaming freely in Europe. I should have built more submarines to break out of the blockade and Russia was harder to defeat than expected. How would the game have played out? God knows. I only know that I would persuade most of my A&A friends to try this game.

The gameplay is very dynamic; one must constantly adjust strategies and tactics in order to gain the upper edge. There had been many A&A websites with discussions and articles on A&A strategies. I wonder if there are web sites focussing on strategy for this game? Please let me know if you have found any.