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Tiles or Placement
: the board is made from a variety of large tiles which can be laid out
in different orders to give a variety of game boards (e.g. Settlers Of
Catan, Tikal, Lowenherz, Mississippi Queen).
Or the game consists of laying
out smaller tiles, pieces or objects on a board or moving tiles after they're
laid.
(Drunter & Druber, Take It Easy, Linie 1, Expedition, Entdecker,
Samurai, Durch Die Wuste, Tikal, Ra, Fossil, El Caballero, Volle Hutte,
Marracash, Euphrat & Tigris, El Grande, Manhattan, Torres)
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Victory Points/Scoring Track/Spending
Points : You win by achieving a certain number of victory
points for various goals (Settlers), or you accumulate points in the game
and move your score marker around the track (Medici, Basari, Ursuppe, Manhattan,
Fossil, Tikal).
In Ursuppe (left), your place in the scoring determines who gets
first actions in ascending or descending order, so it might pay to be last
for a while! This gives losing players the chance to catch up late in the
game and snatch victory. Also, games treat the score like cash, so you
must spend some of your points to gain more (Medici, Fossil, Showmanager).
Also game victory can be shared between players, each achieving their own
goals.
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No Dice : The
random element is provided by decks of cards (Lowenherz, El Grande, Ave
Caesar, Stimmt So!, Showmanager, Reibach & Co, Union Pacific), or by
placing tiles or objects (Samurai, Durch Die Wuste, Sizimizi), which provide
a balanced structure to events.
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Uncertain End Point
: The game ends when various conditions are reached or when the deck produces
a game ending card (Lowenherz, Reibach & Co, Campanile). This encourages
players to get in an optimal position early, or risk going one more round.
In Durch Die Wuste, the game ends when you finish one pile of a colour
of camels, so you can try to force a game end when you want. In many games,
it isn't clear who will win until you finally count up the points.
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Limited Rounds
: Many games have a set number of rounds, such as 4 or 6 (Manhattan, Elfenland,
Chinatown, Torres). This way, the game is reasonably short and players
are pressed to make the best of their situation in the limited time.
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Bid & Bluff
: There are bluffing card and dice games (Hols de Geier, Munchausen). The
games involve bidding for assets in an auction (Modern Art, Medici), or
players choose their card/tokens in secret and reveal them, trying to bluff
their opponent into spending too much (Das Gold von der Maya). In Basari,
you make 1 of 3 choices, and 2 players making the same choice must bid
with their gems to get the choice. But you're trying to gain gems, so winning
a bid costs!
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Negotiation :
Probably the strongest element in many games is that players must negotiate
with each other, swapping and trading items each wants (Settlers, Chinatown,
Metropolis, Basari, Tonga Bonga). These games force players to talk to
each other and to help each other!
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Easy Rules : The
rules are usually simple and easy to learn, often in a few minutes. They
usually don't have fiddly conditions or special rules. Some German games
are heavy and complex (we call them "gamer's games"), but most are aimed
at families, for parents to play with their children. Typically, they can
be played by 8 or 10 year olds.
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Lovely Bits :
Almost all German games use wooden pieces instead of plastic. The cardboard is
thick and heavy. The artwork is fantastic, colourful and stylish design.
Even the boxes are great, square and deep, not the long flat boxes that
tear at the corner. And German publishers don't sell air, most boxes being
reasonably full of bits.
Sadly, Settlers has now gone plastic, which is a shame, but you can still find the wood edition.
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Settlers Of Catan (dSvC)-is a developing and trading game set on a small island. Each player collects cards for produce (sheep, timber, wheat, bricks & ore). You use these to build villages, roads and towns worth victory points.
As your settlement expands, you get more chances to get cards and more
victory points; the first to 10 VPs wins. However, you cannot always get
the cards you need and players must trade with each other to keep progressing.
Each game is different since the layout of the island tiles is random
at the start. The game even uses probability theory as you roll 2 dice
per turn. Using dice means that luck does play a role, but fore-thought,
planning and clever trading will be more important in winning.
Die Seidler von Catan has spawned expansions; Seafarers, Cities &
Knights, Starfarers, dSvC card game and naturally a CD Rom! Sales now exceed
3 million... have you played it yet? |
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Mississippi Queen -is
a river race with paddle-steamers. Your steamboat's wheels show its speed
and coal reserve. You can change speed and turn your boat in your move,
but extra changes cost coal. You must collect two passengers in the race
before you finish and you can barge other boats out of your way.
You decide how your boat goes. The only random element is the bends
in the river, left, right or straight on, chosen by dice roll before the
tile is placed.
It is a great game, lots of fun as boats jostle along. As some fall
back to pick up passengers, the others race on, but normally all the players
reach the finish in a bunch. |
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6 Nimmt! (6 Takes!) -
is a quick, simple but fiendish card game for 2-10 players. 104 are numbered
from 1 to 104 (!), each card having one or more little oxheads on it. You
are dealt 10 cards and 4 are dealt face up on the table, the start of 4
rows. Everyone chooses a card from their hand to reveal simultaneously.
These cards go onto the rows, you choose another card and so on. When a
row has 5 cards in it, it is full. If your card goes onto that row as the
6th card, you pick up the five in front and your card starts the row afresh
(6Takes!). The cards you collect go in front of you and each oxhead on
them will score -1 against you. After some rounds, when somebody's score
hits -66, the best score wins.
Your card goes onto the end of the row where the number on the last
card is nearest below yours. So if the rows end 20, 30, 40 & 50 and
you play a 42, it goes on the 40 row. If you played a 89, it goes on the
50 row, despite the gap.
A beautifully simple and original game, with a fair amount of luck.
The tension builds quickly as the rows fill and it is great fun when you
avoid the pick up. It even plays differently with more or fewer players. |
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Carabande -is
an action game of flicking discs! Large MDF pieces slot together to make
a racing circuit. Up to 8 players each have a wooden disc which they flick
round the course, Carrom style. The track has walls and a good shot will
take you far round. But if you land off the track, or knock someone else
off, you go back to where you started from.
Simple and great fun for adults and children alike. Carabande also has an expansion set that has extra bends, a bottleneck, a chicane and a jump! Some people even buy two sets of Carabande to make huge tracks.
Good News! Carabande is re-issued as Pitch Car, with the basic set and the expansion. Sadly, the different editions are not compatable, so if you don't have Carabande, buy into Pitch Car now.
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Chinatown -
is a negotiation game played in just 6 quick, sharp rounds. Players first
get cards showing plots in Chinatown, but must reject 2. Then they draw
tiles for businesses like restaurants, laundry, watchmaker etc. Next is
the frantic trading of plots, tiles & money, after which players put
their business tiles on their plots.
Finally, at the end of each round, your shops earn you money. A complete
business earns much more than a partial one. The tiles are numbered 3 to
6, so a '4' shop earns $4,000 when 3 tiles are down , but earns $8,000
when 4 tiles are connected, completing the business.
The next round begins again with getting plots, then tiles and so on.
Most money at the end wins! Players quickly realise that bigger stores
earn bigger profits, but take more tiles, plots and time to complete.
The small random element & limited time leaves a nearly pure trading
game; good deals allow both players to prosper, selfish players penalise
themselves. |
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Tikal - is
the 1999 Game Of the Year and clearly follows the innovative design lead
of Settlers. Exploring the Mayan jungle, you gradually uncover temples
and buried treasure, competing with other explorers to score the best sights.
After laying a fresh tile, you spend only 10 Action Points each turn, moving
explorers around, recovering treasure and revealing the ziggurats for higher
scores. The temples start at value 1 or 2, but spending points allows you
to put tiles on them, raising their value to 3, 4 etc. up to a possible
10 points.
Three scoring rounds occur when the volcano tiles appear and
there is a final scoring at the end. Whoever has the most explorers at
a temple gets the points & you get points for sets of treasures as well.
The game flows very sweetly, looks fantastic as the jungle is gradually
explored, and the whole thing plays very nicely. Having only 10 Action
Points creates a real struggle as you have to spend your points efficiently
to maximise your position for the random scoring rounds. A superb game
that will enthrall you. |
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| Hols De Geier -
is a quick & easy card game, where players must double-think. Each
player has cards numbered 1-15 & compete for 15 scoring cards; 10 mouse
cards scoring 1 to 10; 5 vulture cards, scoring -1 to -5. To win a mouse,
you play a card higher than anyone else's. But if it's a vulture, the lowest
card wins. When more than one player has the highest card, then the next
highest wins. Likewise, if the lowest card is shared, the next lowest wins.
So if the scoring card is a mouse 6, and the cards played are 12, 11, 6,
12 and 12, then the 11 will win. If a vulture is out, and the cards played
are 9, 10, 7,8, 7, then the 8 will win it. Players discard their cards
when played, so some card counting helps, but the heart of the game lies
in out-thinking your friends! |
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Linie Ein -is
a tile placement game, where players try to lay tram lines between their
terminii. The first tram home, after 2 or 3 required stops, wins.
Each turn you may place, or replace, only 2 tiles. So your intended
route can easily go wrong. The tiles have straights, curves and lots of
combinations, and with up to 5 players laying track, your route will twist
and turn wildly.At the start, you keep secret which terminii & stops
you have, but players can work out who is going where & thwart their
plans!
A simple, but nefarious game. Have you got the right tile to get your
path going where you want? |
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Wildlife Adventure
/ Expedition (current re-issue by Queen
Games) - A classic placement game making routes around the world to spot
rare animals / visiting ancient ruins
which match the cards you were dealt. Place red, blue or white arrows from
point to point around the world, extending the expeditions across the map,
using travel tokens and bonus moves to make the expedition go further.
As well as scoring points for visiting your sights, including double points
for ones you've marked at the start, there are also public expeditions
to pick up as well.
The trick to the game is that you can use your moves to remove arrows,
backtracking, and where a route makes a loop, you can break out from the
loop anywhere. So combining backtracking and looping makes the expeditions
jump in starnge directions, not where you planned.
Although the arrows are plastic, the game looks very good and the thinking
about how to make the best of your moves stretches your mind nicely. |
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Where can you get German games?
The best source of German games is Germany.
Prices are around euro20 for large games, going up to e40 for some of
the latest big releases. The exchange rate is roughly e1.5=£1, so
that gives a typical price between £15-20, frankly bargain prices
for what you get. Card games run from e5 typically, 3 quid for excellent
card games! Although you have to add in delivery, the extra cost is minimal.
If you are in the US, the exchange rate is virtually 1:1, so the price in Euros is the dollar price. But you can get the best German games in US editions from Rio Grande Games, www.riograndegames.com . They cherry-pick the best of the new games from the german publishers, and have an identical edition US edition printed under their label in full English. Another US publisher is Mayfair which produces the US editions of Settlers and others. Or buy through retailer Funagain Games, with a very good website www.funagain.com .
The most popular mail order firm in Germany is Adam Spielt, who still print a large, very useful catalogue (in German) and they take
Visa! They are very helpful with good English, send them an email info@adam-spielt.de, give them your Visa number and they will send a catalogue and charge a
few quid. Start buying from them and they will send a catalogue each year
for free. They do have a website now, but it is not that useful.
A better websight (in German) is provided by
PlayMe www.playme.de, with a superb search engine that you can even search
by game designer, very useful. They take Visa and Mastercard and their
English is very good too.
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The main problem with buying from Germany is
that you usually do not get English rules, but you can usually get English rules
off the internet. Most modern games are translated very quickly on the newest site The Boardgame Geek www.boardgamegeek.com . For older games, rules & reviews for these are still on The Game Cabinet www.gamecabinet.com . We must not forget the grandfather of German gaming in the UK, Mike Siggins, a pioneer who operated The Rules Bank, collecting and distributing rules in the early years. He also ran an excellent fanzine Sumo, its place being taken now by The Counter, a quarterly fanzine from Stuart Dagger, Mike Clifford and Alan How
AlanDOTHowATwhichDOTnet . |
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Probably the best source in the UK now is Discount
German Games run by Andy Daglish, http://members.aol.com/aforandy/discount.htm , who is looking
to provide German games to UK shoppers at German prices and is doing sterling
work! He doesn't supply the English rules though.
In the UK, more shops are starting to carry
them, although not so cheaply, but they DO provide the English rules. In
London, Leisure Games in Finchley (www.leisuregames.com) is a great store.
On Museum Street is Playin' Games, with a good selection downstairs. Recently,
Waterstone's bookstore is carrying them too (a breakthrough perhaps). Around
the country, look for them in Sci-Fi or Comicbook shops, and especially
where you buy RPGs. For example Travelling Man shops carry some German
games.
In America, as well as www.funagain.com , there is www.bouldergames.com and www.germangames.com provide German games in Canada.
For a full list of useful websights, drop me a line and I will send an up-to-date selection.
Write to me : eyeATtragsnartDOTcoDOTuk |
Click on any picture for more detail
