Board Game Review: Android

Since I put so much work into this, I thought I'd repost it here in case anyone (hah!) would like to read it.

It's a review of a very large and complicated board game by a large and very successful company called Fantasy Flight Games. This game is called Android and sees the players take the roles of detectives investigating a conspiracy and murder against the background of a dystopian future (think Blade Runner meets Space 1999).

The game takes place over two "weeks" (of six turns each, making 12 turns in total)

In these two weeks players assign guilt, uncover the conspiracy all the while playing cards to help themselves and hinder their opponents.

Much of this is spent moving to certain places seeking out leads, which you can assign to the conspiracy or murder suspects.

The conspiracy is discovered in the form of a rather ingenious puzzle that shows a maze of connections, where the links show which persons are involved.

I include it here more for the quality of the writing than trying to get anyone to play with me.

Click the link for the whole thing

===================================================================

I hope I can convey in this review what a game of Android is like and how it works. I also wanted to show you, from experience, how each game can be affected fundamentally by its most ingenious feature - the conspiracy puzzle.

My lofty aim is that this review can be followed and understood not only by those thinking of buying this game who have already done some research but also by those they intend to play it with (who may know nothing). I hope I can achieve this in general enough terms that we avoid a rulebook rehash,

Also, I am bolding certain sections of the post to show the "highlights"

I'm now up to 4 games played of Android and am loving it!

CAVEAT: I would recommend, from experience, that you don't try and teach four players at once! At least not while trying to play as well.

What I am currently liking a lot is how the different investigators are forced, due to their strengths and weaknesses, to take sometimes very different approaches to winning. Though I have never won

I was also impressed (as you'll see) by how despite the killing of one of their suspects in two consecutive games, the (same) winner still adapted and came out on top.

To people who don't know much about the game, I will explain its structure in very general terms. This next section is partially adapted from an email I sent to someone to see if they wanted to play.

================The Game itself - what is it?==================

Android is a game that, like many others, uses the universally accepted all-purpose nebulous currency of Victory Points (VPs).

The winner of the game is the player with the most VPs at the end of the game. (well, duh!)

The trouble is, every turn you have a very limited amount of time to do things - usually allowing for a total of 6 "time" points. The task you have is to use your time well enough to score many points, while fighting off other players traps and roadblocks.

Your characters have a lot of personal stuff to use and think about - a guilty and an innocent hunch to prove, their own stories you live through during the game, and two decks of cards, one that helps them, and one that hurts them.

The detail of the plots, cards and how they work is unnecessary for a review like this, but I think it's worth taking a look at how you can get those all important victory points.

There are three points scoring methods;

1. endings to plots (between -10pts and 14pts),
2. having the right hunches (0pts if unsuccessful to 25pts if both guilty and innocent is correct),
3. picking up tokens from three places (Haas and Jinteki token 3vp each, conspiracy line completions 4vp each).

Aside from scoring for completed lines (horizontal, vertical and diagonal sets of five) the conspiracy puzzle does something even more crucial - it can modify any or all the other points scoring methods by anything from 1vp extra up to potentially (though a not practical or likely outcome) a massive 16vp extra. It can also make things that are worthless except in exchange (the favours) crucial to victory.

=======So this puzzle is the key to everything?======

Not always, but perhaps.... the cool thing about the puzzle is you can only do it if you forgo your right (and time) to do something else important (namely work toward your hunches) - Android is a game where you have very limited time resources to do everything.

You can't afford to ignore the conspiracy though.

FWIW, I think the puzzle can easily be underestimated as a force in the game. Even if you don't want to spend time on it, rest assured that it will affect the outcome of the game significantly if someone else does.

To show this fully, take a look at how it affected our last two games.

=========================Last Weekend==========================

The conspiracy puzzle was defining in both games this last weekend, but in very different ways - take a look and see why.

In the game I played Saturday the conspiracy was complete by turn 4 - everyone wanted some of those crucial 4VP tokens - and the outcome of the conspiracy ended up benefitting the eventual winner most - who crucially had his Guilty Hunch killed off in the process.

The way the conspiracy does this well is that depending on the connections different things become important in different games. In this game it was Street favours - where else could you gain 3VP a turn for just 2 time? Nowhere! They soon ran out.

The other fascinating fact here was that thanks to all those connections, the Innocent hunches came out worth a full 11pts each, as opposed to the 5 they usually are.

Since Guilty Hunches were only worth 17, the conspiracy drastically reduced the points swing between guilty and innocent hunches (there's usually a ten point gap), leading to higher scores and a closer run result (1st Position had 56, 2nd 55 and third 53 - fourth btw had 45. Less said about 5th the better (-7!!!!)) I was third (behind my brother AND my wife, which shows the accessibility of this since Mrs Algo is only an occasional gamer) despite having the guilty hunch!

How did I only come third when I had the highest scoring thing, Guilty hunch, in the game - you may ask? It wasn't because I'm incompetent! Honest!

This was because my innocent hunch was the guy who had been killed (D'OH!), meaning I had lost those 11 points (though bro would still have won if he'd managed to keep him alive and guilty)

By contrast, in the second game I played, with three detectives on Sunday, with some of the same players (mum and bro) the conspiracy was virtually "pointless" though it led to the killing off of the eventual winners innocent hunch, and only Jinteki tokens had four extra points. What Raymond (me) was able to do, was bluff people into chasing Political favours (worth four each for most of the game) and on the last turn, turned the relevant conspiracy piece around and blocked off the relevant link meanign that their hard earned political favours were now worthless! I also totally monopolised the 4vp tokens by leaving no legal placement spaces for pieces very early on (about turn four).

I appreciate that without reading all the cards one won't know this last move could happen, and no-one knew it was coming, but it serves to underline the effect the conspiracy can have on final scoring. (1st place 35pts, 2nd 31pts, 3rd 16pts)

(another cool thing that happened in this game was that an event reduced our "time points per turn" by one for most of the second week. This meant our plans had to be changed on the fly)

=====Get to the point now, Algo!=====

The fact I still came second in the second game despite totally controlling the puzzle shows the flexibility and multiplicity of paths to victory in this great game - and the three player game came in at under three hours. I think this will see more play than TI:3 in terms of gaming hours!

Oh, and about that -7 score in the first game. That was my mum's score (and is a sad indictment of my teaching) BUT she still enjoyed the game enough that it was her suggestion we play again on Sunday. That game she got 16 (and would have had 28 save for my last turn butchery of her points with the conspiracy). I put this down to the fact that Rachel Beckmann appears to be a very tough character to play with rather than any particular poorness on mum's part. This detective seems to have it rough at virtually everything and her money vps didn't make up for it.

On the whole, I was very please I managed to teach the game to four people at once (on Saturday) with mostly success (sorry mum) and this was a hugely fun weekend, with games of Shadows Over Camelot, Princes Of Florence and BSG as well. Just a great, great weekend.

AND I got a Curry one night as well. Does life get any better?

==========Alright, alright. But is the game any good?=========


It REALLY deserves a look. I appreciate many will find themselves unhappy with some of its mechanisms and its harshness with "take that" methods of winning, but if you let it, it can become a fantastic way to spend your time.

Plus, it feels to me like, while playing Android, you are actually playing three or four games (a card game, a race to complete the puzzle, evidence placement and plots) all of which are interconnected. The three to four hour running time doesn't really hurt that much given this fact. Sure, you could play four to six games of Shadows over Camelot in the same time as a five player game of Android - my advice would always be DO BOTH!

Then I think about how you have 5 murders (or, minor rule changes to give it the boring explanation) to try out and five very different characters to play as.

While games are even more expensive than ever, and the economy is so bad I think this big box has ALREADY given me value for money at £8 a game or so, since a movie costs about that much.

=========Hmm, interesting, but it sounds complicated========

My advice to new players is not to get hung up on winning the first game so much. There's so much going on you'll get a headache and won't enjoy it.

I've never been too hung up on winning anyway (lucky, really!)) and I don't think anyone who views games as a social and fun activity can get too upset if their first game is a little unsuccessful points-wise (like mum!))

Take it easy and it'll all become clear, on average, about turn four. If you are really insistently unhappy at the disadvantage your mates may let the game be restarted and you can really go for it then.

If not - don't worry, just have fun. It's a fairly forgiving system so long as you keep an eye on your baggage (and remember draws are bad, just like in SoC).

================Wrap it up, half the audience are asleep!============

I'm very impressed with Android - I think everyone should give it a go, it is clear it does not work for everyone and that's fine, but everyone I have tried it with had a good time and got something out of it.

On a personal level, I am pleased with the variety, the value for money side and replay value.

I highly recommend it.

A

P.S. Thanks for reading and I hope whatever your views on Android or my review, your games are always as fun and memorable as this has clearly been for me. All the best!
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Fly your cruddy ships across the galaxy....

I know, I know, you hate me talking about Board Games, but this one is a little special.
Many of the "gamers games" out at the moment are very serious, and have dull themes... you know the sort of thing, creating postal routes in medieval Germany for example, or trading bits of cardboard at auction.... so far so YAWN, right?

Sucks sometimes, if you don't let yourself get into it... so hoorah for the genius, Vlaada Chvatil who designed another of my favourite games, Through The Ages, who has in this case created the rather wonderful "Galaxy Truckers", which gave me one of the most immensely fun Wednesday evenings I have had in ages...

What's the game about? Well... it's mainly in two parts... the first is you, against the clock, trying to build as good a spaceship as you can from the parts available and in the second yhe ships you have built are sent across the galaxy encountering meteor storms, space pirates and the like and for the most part getting smashed to bits.

It's not a game for people who like reliable strategies and predictable gameplay since it is impossible to build a ship capable of withstanding everything the game throws at you and is even harder to guess what the trip across the galaxy is going to throw at you in the way of laser blasts, potentially lucrative cargo and meteor storms...

There are lots of bits to choose from when making your ship, but there's a catch - everyone is grabbing them in a time limit from the same pile of parts, creating competition... especially since there aren't enough pieces for everyone and each person to finish gets a headstart on those behind them. Yowzer!

So in fact it is purely a game of trying to protect yourself from all hazards, but this is impossible so you come to rely on crazy luck based guesswork... bearing this in mind though, it is ridiculous amounts of FUN! I lost this first game by an absolute mile as my poor little ship was absolutely smashed to bits on the final run through the galaxy and I lost half of my ship to a wayward asteroid. Nevertheless it was the most chatty, laugh out loud and friendly experience I have had for a long time. It has for the first time in ages led me to really bemoan the lack of funds I have at the moment (so anyone looking for Christmas inspiration....).

Thanks for listening,

A
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New games added to the collection!

Addign to my ealier post on Algo's Game Collection

Courtesy of a birthday I am now in possession of two or three new games:

Say Anything: Similar to Balderdash, only better! You pick a question from a card along the impossible-to-prove opinion lines (i.e. the most overrated band of all time, the best Pizza Topping) all the other players have to write down what they think your favourite answer to the question will be. Any duplicates are eliminated and have to be rewritten, and the real clever bit is that rather than living or dying by your own response, you bet on what you think is the right answer (or at least, the questioner's favourite answer) is. To do this you have two tokens with your colour (and symbol for the colourblind) on it. You get one point for each of your tokens on the chosen answer and one for being the one who wrote the right answer down (first, since duplicates are rewritten by the last person to put them down). This means players can get a maximum of three points each. The questioner gets a point for every token on the answer he chose (obviously he did this before betting, using the hitech "selectomatic 5000") up to a maximum of three points as well. I hope you can see that this means everyone has an incentive to play the game properly. Another improvement over Balderdash is in the bits, which consist of, instead of paper and pencils, dry-wpie markers and boards, so you can use the same bits over and over again. Very neat.

1960: The Making Of The President: A truly great game, and a great way of learning the frankly insane American electoral system and the history of the Kennedy vs. Nixon election from 1960. Doesn't sound fun right now? Of course not, but every turn you have cards you can play as events or to use their value as action points to either gain support in a state, buy up media coverage, g public on the issues (defence, economy and civil rights) that were on the public agenda at the time. It also has a debates mechanic and the possibility of permanent events coming up that can change the whole course of the election. I've played a few games of this, and the best one is the one that ended 271-267 in Nixons favour (courtesy of the tag team efforts of Chris and his missus). This means (for those of you not in the know, that the two sides were separated by just 2 electoral votes - pretty much like Gore/Bush were. Cool!

Ghost Castle: Retro Genius wth the skull that bounces around knocking your pieces over. Too simple to bother explaining, but fecking genius all the same, and my big bro managed to find the same edition we played as kids. Thanks bro!

Still looking for folks to play games with.... anyone interested?

Oh and especially for Lynne - while I would hesitate to recommend 1960 because of your daughter, I say you and Neil would love it. You could use dice in place of the cubes (they are used to show numerical support superiority in states but you'd need about 40 red and 40 blue ones, so you may not like that idea. Also - I know Agricola is a lot, but for goodness sake get it. It is bloody brilliant.

A
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My five seconds of fame

It was always going to happen.

I got obliquely referenced in "The Dice Tower" podcast, not for any interesting point I made on their forum, not for my achievements in board gaming, but for having a go at one of the hosts for being a flag waving yankee freak.

The host in question referred to the following as a "blasting". See what you think...

This is his little quote, regarding his irritation at his side, the Americans, being destroyed by his opponent playing as the French. The game in question is set in Napoleonic times, hence the different skills of the armies. Anyway, he brought up the perennial American asshole subject...

Furthermore, the French and British armies are rather balanced, and I remember the Americans whooping the British in the Revolutionary War.

OK, not a big deal, I know, but it caught me at a bad time.
My initial response:

Heh... I'm sure the American victory in the Revolutionary War was solely due to superior army skill and not the forty zillion other factors involved, not least the size of the forces involved.

In Europe the British and French armies were at a very similar level for hundreds of years before and then for years after the War you mention - hence why there was never a permanent victory for either side. In this sense I don't see a problem with the balance here.

So... to replicate the "whooping" you describe, the American army would just need to be increased in size. And get the French to help again.

Balance your flag waving with some humility, please.

A

Edit: Sorry for the overreactions.

So I sort of decide to say things, but went back to cross them out, to show they're a little bit of overreactions.

For the record, I didn't mean what I said as flag-waving. I was simply making a statement that was meant to support my thought that the armies shouldn't have been so far removed from each other in overall strength.

He apologised, and I decided to clarify a little further (as is my right) so he didn't think I was just being a jerk.

Thanks for clarifying your intent. I should clarify mine, since I am consistently coming over as short fused...

As for my use of the phrase "flag waving", I don't know how else to describe someone using the phrase "Whooping".

Especially given the factors involved were far more nuanced than that simplistic and factually questionable statement asserts.

Im sure you understand that and it was just an off the cuff statement, my reason to bring the whole thing up was that I would suggest that in fact the differential between the British and American armies in Manouevre, as you describe it, seems pretty accurate in the sense of a pitched battle between equally sized forces of that period in a hypothetical, neutral surrounding.

Thing is, no battles are ever that simple. I watched a game of Manouevre and I'm pretty sure it wasn't detailed as to supply lines and "campaign level" issues, so it is a purely skill based differential.

I think, like the British Empire did, the US is now finding out how hard it is to keep "allies" in foreign countries on your side with stretched supply lines and an apathetic parliament and populace.

To understand that I am not just being thin-skinned, how would an American feel if someone started talking about the Viet-Cong "whooping" the US army in Vietnam, or more relevantly, the North "whooping" the South in your Civil War?

Such talk would be inappropriate in any context. These things are never so simple as to sum up as a "whooping".

That's what I meant by humility. Whereas these things are in the past, we shouldn't fall into the trap of simplifying whole campaigns to serve our patriotic natures.

"Whooping" for me means Spurs beating Arsenal 5-1 in the cup, not the outcome of a horrific war of attrition, or the revolutionary war.

As I say, I'm not really trying to pick bones out of your off the cuff remark, but it caught me off guard, and I thought I'd explain my response further so you know I have actually got an opinion and aren't just trolling (since we keep disagreeing on things).

Was I an asshole here? I feel a bit embarrassed about the whole thing now. The internet is absolutely not the place to be tongue in cheek and the original intent of all my posts never come over.

A
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Sexism in Box Art

In true me style I have been causing trouble over on www.boardgamegeek.com

I took issue with one podcasters objection to this box image from the game DUST:



He exhorted on how the depiction of a "Voluptuous Russian Woman" on the front is unnecessary and a little pathetic method of sex-based marketing.

It may be because the particular podcaster is involved with a Christian mission out in Korea that he is so prudish, but is this box art really that dodgy and/or sexist?

I've seen covers of cosmopolitan that are more degrading to women, and many many many male magazines that are so much worse it's hard to describe.

What he stated was that the game should sell itself. My retort is that NOTHING sells itself. That these methods of marketing are ingrained in the western psyche and, most importantly of all, WORK!

I can kind of see his point. It is sad that sexy imagery (though I still don't see this image as particularly sexy or sexist) is used to sell everything from cereal to razor blades from a boredom point of view, but these adverts often elicit evolutionary responses, in the case of special K or Gillette its the evolutionary drive to be attractive to the opposite sex - what purpose does this box serve? ONLY ONE purpose, and that is to make you pick up the box and look at the game. The main market for board games is straight males and what better way to get their attention than a picture of an attractive woman?

All seems fairly simple to me.

What really got my goat was another person who indirectly described anyone who didn't find the image pointless bordering on offensive was a beer chugging, football loving emotional retard and a sexist. Welcome to the wide and depressing world of binary thinking.

All opinions and viewpoints cannot be summed up in either/or terms. It's just not possible - sexists and their opposites for which I can't think of a word... the ASEXISTS if you will, are but two ends of a spectrum that includes everyone inbetween - to paraphrase Avenue Q, "Everyone's a little bit sexist".

I don't think, however, that the artist who drew this fine example of a box cover is a sexist, I just think he is more realistic than those having a go at the art. The purpose of packaging is to assist the sale and I believe this is a great example of how to catch the eye.

Plus, COME ON! You'd have to be a horny 13 year old to be aroused by this picture. I mean.. what the hell do you think she's thinking? "Where's my Bra?", maybe...

Sigh... I just don't get it.

As an aside, note that not a single woman is involved in this conversation - not one. I put this down to poor marketing on Boardgamegeek's part - its not the sort of website name that will inspire confidence is it?

What do you think? Is this Box art in any way titillating, and does it matter even if it is?
Do check out www.boardgamegeek.com though, it's a great site.

A
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Algo's Game Collection

See, it can be a little painful reviewing your ridiculous expenditure on certain fun-ish things when you make a little cash total appear in your head. Ouch. Here's my game collection. Lovely isn't it?


This is further to my original post on EUROGAMES

So, starting from the top left:

1. The black box with the red spine is my travel edition of the wonderful and very ancient game of "Go" which was invented thousands of years ago in China (or Japan, I forget) and entails the claiming of territory using a simple "place one stone" system and yet contains so much strategy it has been described as like playing five interconnected games of chess at once. It is simply wonderful. This set is fairly crappy though, with plastic pieces and a very dodgy board.
2. To the right of Go is an old CD folder. It has PC games in it. Nothing more interesting than that.
3. Underneath Go is a jigsaw puzzle Mrs Algo and I picked up in Barcelona on a rainy evening when we decided we'd stay in. In the end we spent so long choosing a jigsaw the poor dear fell straight asleep when we got in. Ah well. It is of the big Heironymous Bosch Triptych, I forget its name. We eventually completed it at the in-laws last Christmas as a team effort, which is pretty much the point of Jigsaws, if you ask me.
4. Next to the Jigsaw is Abalone, a fairly good Marble pushing game that has long since been overtaken by Go as my "abstract" game of choice
5. The Purply box is for Descent: Journeys (sic) in the dark which is a new take on Heroquest. Not shown are the three expansions I have for it. It is quality, though a little tough on the heroes for half the quest, and then on the "dungeonmaster" for the second half when they get good kit.
6. Under Descent you find Twilight Imperium, a wonderful game (see top ten list) that is only slightly marred by its Six to Seven hour (!) play time. It is an epic game in all repects, containign a ridiculous number of pieces, options and an expansion too. It can be played by up to eight people. Though how you find eight willing people I am not so sure. I LOVE THIS GAME! PLEASE OFFER TO PLAY IT WITH ME!
7. From one end of the gaming spectrum to the other, with Taboo (to the right of the big boxes) - Its a reasonably amusing party game where you have to get your team to guess words without using certain words to do so - caused a laughably serious argument at Christmas, party games and too much booze do not generally mix well.
8. Now , to finish off the top shelf we have a Jenga set - a replacement for the one I used as a drinking game in India (that one is, to my knowledge, still behind the bar in Roxy at the Park Hotel, Calcutta) and as such has none of the tequila stained, suspicious marked goodness, but is still genius.
9. On top of Jenga is Citadels - a card game where you choose a character (king, assassin etc) for the round and use them to help you build the best city. Really quite good fun except for the steep learning curve. It is more or less essential to know all the characters up front to get the best out of it.
10. Onto the second shelf and we have Cranium, a game I love since it has variety - your team has challenges to perform in the realms of spelling, acting, artistry and knowledge - so everyones strengths can come to the fore. Don't get it play it enough since too many of my friends are too self conscious.
11. Next to that is the light wargame Memoir '44 which shares mechanics with two other games on this list (known as the "commands and colours system"), where you have a set of cards you can play as orders to your troops and then you move and attack with those forces you ordered. A great introduction to wargames for those who want it to be, but I like it just for its simplicity. This particular version is the simplest example of that system.
12. Next to that is Ticket To Ride:Marklin, a game of claiming train routes that is about a billion times more fun than that sounds. You gain points not only for claiming connections between cities, but also for both forming full routes between distant locations and for sending passengers along, picking up bonuses at every station. It really is good fun and almost pitifully easy to learn.
13. The next two boxes are for Mrs Algo's favourite game, Arkham Horror, a cross between Board Game and RPG. It stands out in my collection as one of the only "cooperative" games in there. I mean that in contrast to "team" games since in Arkham Horror all players are on the same side against the viciously evil Cthulu and his horrible mates. you have to close gates to other dimensions and deal with the monsters coming out of them, and quickly, or the big evil demon that is running the show will make mincemeat of you in a final encounter. Lots of dice rolling is involved, but it remains great fun. Plus, we have a whale of a time creating our own characters and putting them up against the game.
14. Next to Arkham and its expansion, we have "Death Zone" which is actually a box housing parts for Blood Bowl, so I'll talk about that later.
15. Next is The Lord Of The Rings game, another cooperative game and probably the game that turned me back onto this form of games, again a horribly challenging game that can give you some nasty surprises, but doesn't have the story element of the events in Arkham Horror, so this one has been left by the wayside a bit. It would probably be worth getting out again, come to think of it.
16. Another game from the commands and colours system next: Battlelore! This is similar to Memoir 44 but is considerably more complicated and has magic and fantasy elements to it, like giant spiders and stuff. I also have the bits to play it double sized, or "epic" scale making the most enormous battles. Truly great stuff.
17. Next to that and finishing off the second shelf are two versions of the highly successful game Carcassonne, the original version and the Hunters And Gatherers version. If you're thinking of checking out the "Eurogame" style, this is probably the best place to start in my opinion. The game is one where you lay out tiles on a table which have pictures on them of fields, roads, cities etc and claim those features with your "meeples" (little wooden men, from "my people" - yes I am a geek) you score points depending on the size of each road, city etc and get your man back when it is scored, so you are having to balance high points scoring areas with having less men to place. It is true genius.
18. Third shelf time! And we find ourselves with The Princes Of Florence, an auctioning game where you become a patron of the arts and try and oversee the creation of the greatest works by building theatres, laboratories and also lakes and parks for those silly artists to get inspired by. Thing is, only one player can take each action every turn, so you may have to adjust your plan!
19. Next to that is the current king of games, the plantation based, Puerto Rico - each turn you select one role, and use the benefits associated with that role. Problem is, everyone else gets to take that action as well - so make sure you are not helping them more than you help yourself. Also notable for best euphemism in my games collection (it describes the workers delivered to you as "colonists" when you know full well they're slaves). It deserves its reputation and has seen many plays from me.
20. Next to that is Thurn and Taxis, worst themed game ever. You are trying to set up postal routes. Its a little too similar to Ticket To Ride, but is a decent game in its own right. Maybe a little TOO german for many peoples tastes though!
21. Golly! Next is a vintage (read, 20 year old or more) copy of Fury Of Dracula. This game recently got a makeover and rerelease but I have kept this one for old times sake. Dracula moves in secret and its up to the three investigators to work together to trap him. Sort of like a more evil version of Scotland Yard. It is a decent game but really suffers from a lousy fighting system that goes on forever.
22. Another modern classic is Tigris and Euphrates, a game where you place one of four different coloured tiles or a monument every turn and score points for each. You have four leader matching those colours and you only gain points if a route can be traced to those leaders. If two leaders of the same colour fight it out players can add tile from their hadn to assist the fight. Only one can gain control of a set of tiles. Its quite hard to explain here, and equally hard to teach, but again - your patience is well rewarded by this game.
23. Final Command and Colours game in the collection next in the Red and Cream boxes, a more grown up edition called Command and colours: Ancients, and its expansion, spanning from Rome Vs. Carthage and Alexander the Greats campaigns. This one is more absract looking and has a different publisher, meaning that the plastic models are replaced by wooden blocks and the board is thin and nasty. It is still a wonderful game.
24. Aha! Next we have a game that is causing quite a stir in gaming circles, a truly magnificent piece of work called Agricola. In this players have their own boards on which they build their farms and try and diversify and gain points for having the best farm at the end. The picture is of my completed farm from today.
    
    
    
    This game has it all, meaningful decision/reward balance, a good competition system (each action can only be taken once a turn so the one you want may be stolen by someone else) and the ability to grown your family and house. Thing is, you family has to fed every harvest, so planning is required. This is really really excellent and I have no hesitiation in demanding you buy a copy right now.
25. Ick... the next game is Pirateology, a game so rancid it makes the room stink. NEVER BUY A GAME FROM THE ...OLOGY SERIES. Its awful awful awful!
26. Lastly on this shelf we have the Carcassonne Tower, which I use to store all the tiles from Carcassonne, since it is legendary for having too many expansions - I keep the tiles here and the bits in the main box.
    
27. Crikey, onto the fourth shelf and we have Zombies! lurking in the far left, a silly little game of screwing over your mates in as many ways possible as you fight off the Zombie hordes. It is great fun, not particularly one you will dream about afterwards but has led to some extremely great moments. One that comes to mind is me moving the escape route (a helicopter) away from the lead player and over to the other side of the board. Not a friendly tactic.
28. After three Memoir 44 expansions (did I mention I like expansions?) we find, in the yellow box, a classic two player card game, lost cities. The concept of searching for lost cities is totally irrelevant however, since this is really an abstract suit building game of scoring high against a high initial risk. Again, it is waaaay better than it sounds, and has a great mechanic whereby if you discard a card you don't need. your opponent can nick it - meaning you have to be careful what you get rid of as well as what you put down.
29. Next to that we have Alhambra in the orange box. This is a game of buying tiles to make up your palace, and you are rewarded for having the most of each type of tile at three stages. The catch? There are four different in game currencies, and workers will only take pay from their currency and build only one type of tile a round. A cool variation on the tile laying theme.
30. In front of the two white boxes (dumb impulse purchases I won't bore you with) there's an Uno set. I used to like it a lot, I sort of got bored with it. You can get it on Xbox live.
31. Now, next to that is a true gaming legend. Race for the galaxy is probably as good as card games get. You choose an action per turn and this can be to draw cards or lay cards in front of you, or even produce goods on your planet cards and sell them for victory points or other cards. Its a really hard game to learn since it is all about card combinations but if you see a copy get it for yourself and put some time into learning this superb game. You won't be disappointed.
32. Next to that is Trivial Pursuit (shudder) 20th Anniversary edition.
33. Next to trivial pursuit is a great civilisation building card game, Through The Ages, made by a very small, Czech based company. It is a great game of managing resources to build wonders like the pyramids, get leader such as Michelangelo or Shakespeare and improve your scientific knowledge, all while keeping your people happy and fed. Great stuff.
34. Next to that is Cutthroat Caverns, another card based game (they're easy to carry around) where you and your friends have discovered the artifact of untold power, thing is, you all want it for yourselves. Cue a trip out of the dungeon fighting monsters along the way and trying to get the most prestige from defeating them. The USP here is that you are all fighting the same monsters (all of which have different attacks and different characteristics) - but only the character who lands the final, killing blow, gains the experience. This means a lot of backstabbing, potion stealing and general mayhem - thing is though, if you let your buddies die, the monsters stay as strong as they were, so you may be in deep trouble!
35. Running out of breath now but lets keep it going! The big black box on the fifth shelf down is my nice copy of Go. Nice thick double sided board and glass stones. The game is good enough that you'll have a good time with the less nice sets, but there's nothing lice the tactile feel of these glass stones.
36. Right... Orange box is a game called Shogun, not the one from my childhood (which is now called Samurai Swords) but a newer game based on a game called Wallenstein. It is a stand out because of its combat system whereby small wooden cubes of yours and your opponents colours are dropped into a treacherous "cube tower" and the victor is the one who has the most cubes come out of the bottom. This adds a great sense of newness to this game and can cause some major upsets since any cube that does not come out of the tower will stay there for next time, and may be knocked out to assist that players later battles. It also has a nest planning mechanic where you assign each of the turn actions to one of your provinces, meaning you do this blind at the beginning of the turn, not knowing whether other players will block your moves, or maybe take that province, making your order useless!
37. Next to that is a collection of simpler games ina wooden box, things like Draughts, Pick Up Sticks etc.
38. That sits beside Balderdash, a funny party game where all players submit potential answers to really obscure questions and score points for how many people believed their answer was the real one (if by crazy chance they turn out to have been right, they get even more points).
39. Then we get to Settlers of Catan in the red box. Recognised by many as the game that has given new life to board gaming, this game is easy to learn, forgiving in its options, has trading between players and a limited amount of negative interference, while it is not the best game in my collection it remains a fond friend for the occasional play.
40. Next is Zooloretto - a game where you populate your zoo with animals of diffrent types to score points, almost like a quicker and simpler Agricola in many ways, it has a certain amount of kiddie appeal too, for teaching our neice in a couple of years.
41. Super Scrabble next, and its Scrabble on a bigger board feturing (gulp) QUADRUPLE word and letter scores, otherwise its the same old Scrabble.
42. Thats next to Scattergories, a game at which Mrs Algo is the undisputed champion. You have to answer in many categories with words that start with the letter rolled on an unfeasibly large die with 20 odd sides. You have about a minute. I suck.
43. Two copies of monopoly (which I hate) for some reason along with regular scrabble. Had these for years.
44. Finally on this shelf is the Mystery at Hogwarts game, which can best be described as Harry Potter Cluedo. Nothing more to it than that. I was hoping I could sell this at a nice profit since it was a tie in with the first movie, but nothing is doing at the moment. Think I'll wait five years or so.
45. Last Shelf now (phew, my fingers hurt from all this typing) and another of Algo's top ten first. It's Power Grid, and you get to set up connections between cities while bidding at auctions for more and more efficient power stations to power those cities with. Thing is, it also has a brilliant Supply/Demand=Price mechanism that means competition can make things expensive for you when buying resources to power your stations. It is really, really, really great.
46. Then we have Tannhauser, which I got as part of an exchange for Battlelore (for the more expensive World Of Warcraft game if you must know) and I haven't really decided if I like it or not, it's similar to a first person shooter video game in deathmatch mode, and I don't really know why I'd play this instead of Timesplitters, but maybe it'll grow on me.
47. Now its Age of Empires III and this game bears almost no relation to the computer game the licence is from. It is, however, an excellent game of colonisation and risk taking.
48. Subbuteo. It used to be cool with plastic men. Now it has cardboard men on plastic bases. Rubbish. plus my table is STILL too small to play it properly.
49. Advanced Heroquest! A true classic - not really much competition for Descent these days, but great to own for old times sake if nothing else, plus it'll hold its value for future sale.
50. Necromunda. I have really gone off most of Games Workshops stuff since my teens. This used to be my favourite example of their games. It represents small gang warfare as opposed to massive army battles and is a lot better for it.
    
51. Talisman - I remember many very long games of this in our old house in Canterbury. A bit dated now, since its really a case of everyone playing their own game and other people waiting for their turn, which can be a drag if there's five or six of you!
52. The great Blood Bowl, which is the only Games Workshop game that has retained its fun value for me - I have a lovely fully painted team too! It works because it has a great sense of humour to go with its relatively simple playing rules. It has been constantly updated and they are now publishing a "living rulebook" through their website and you can download it for free if you wish and make your own board and pieces up. A free game? Sure!
53. Finally we have a copy of Pirates Of The Spanish Main - the boardgame version of the collectible constructible pirate ship game. The game is actually fairly toss. The ships are very very cool. I have loads of them. They are in a box in a cupboard.
    
54. (Not Shown) Escape From Colditz. A thirty year old charity shop purchase. Complete and in good nick. Hurrah!
55. (Not Shown) The Battle for Hill 218. A very cool simple card game usign supply, support and artillery rules but in a really easy to understand way. Sadly there are 5 cards missing from my copy but I have contacted the makers so we'll see if I get replacements.

And that's it! If you've stayed with me through all that well bloody done. I hope some of these seem interesting and exciting - I am always up for a game, if you're happy to bring Coke and Crisps! Keep drinks away from the boards though!

A
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eurogames

Many people have conceptions and expectations of boardgames based on childhood experience with such games as monopoly and risk etc. there's nothing particularly wrong with that, but recent years have seen a major increase in games from europe that are very different from these and also from party games, such as balderdash, pictionary etc. The name for these games is Eurogames though many popular examples are by american authors.

So what is a eurogame? And how is it different to those long dull games of monopoly you remember from childhood?

The blanket nature of the word eurogame is slightly nisleading in that al sorts of settings, or 'themes' are present and the games very wildly, but there are some factors common to most if not all.

Firstly, the worst part about those long games of monopoly for me were when you were the first to be eliminated, meaning you were ecluded from the next two hours of fun. Most eurogames get rid of elimination altogether, favouring a points scoring system of victory rather then a last man standing approach. This means that noone will be sitting on the sidelines during a game while their friends continue playing.

Secondly, the Victory Points system leads designers to create several different ways of achieving victory, creating points through different methods so that when you play multiple times you can do different things each time and keep the fresh feeling of your first game.

Thirdly, they tend to take less than an hour and since everyone is involved all the way through noone should be bored by the end. This is a crucial improvement on the games from my youth. A four hour game when you get eliminated four hours before the end? No thanks!

So you may want to look at the new generation of games before dismissing this as a hobby.

On the right you will find a list of my favourite games, some of those are Eurogames, chiefly Race For The Galaxy, Princes Of Florence, Power Grid, and Puerto Rico and Carcassonne are considered classics in this genre. As always, I'm always up for a game so heres to social fun!

A
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The importance of fun

I went to a board games club this week, I admit it.

Why is such activity generally frowned on by the rest of humanity? I've been thinking about this up to and since my visit. I had a good time and plan on returning weekly. So why do I feel guilty?

I think the thing people frown on is the perceived frivolous nature of it all. You know - "you spent two hours PLAYING?". Thing is I reckon there's a big crossover between people of that mindset and the sort of folks who spend three hours on a Friday in the pub.

So why is the act of playing a board game worse than sitting with your mates and getting drunk (one should also take into account that the two are not mutually exclusive)? I have a couple of theories, but one is probably that it is viewed in the same way that people like me felt about those freaks who did EXTRA homework, "wait - you voluntarily used your brain?"

It's an odd thought process - but many people view watching TV as more acceptable behaviour than spending the same amount of time playing board games. TV has little interaction and actually stunts communication and connection between people. Board games avoid this and actually are FUN!

I like TV and I like Video Games too, but surely we should all have time in our weeks to sit face to face and play something together that doesn't involve staring at the TV?

You played monopoly when you were young, maybe you played risk too? There is MUCH more to games these days folks.

If you agree, I am always up for a game of something! Let me know and I'll make it happen.

Why not post your own thoughts?

A
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Old Android Review containing errors

CRUCIAL EDIT: After another play I have found a major error in my previous plays. The conspiracy connections have to go to different sides of the central piece meaning the maximum bonus for any one
"point factor" is four. I have changed the relevant section in my rules description, but not the session report since that would make it a false story (these are now in red), so you can laugh at me as much as you like.
==============
(I realise that halfway through, this morphed into a session report but I want to explain why I think you may like this game. If you don't really want to read about the games I played, just skip the "last weekend" section)

I hope I can convey in this review what a game of Android is like and how it works. I also wanted to show you, from experience, how each game can be affected fundamentally by its most ingenious feature - the conspiracy puzzle.

My lofty aim is that this review can be followed and understood not only by those thinking of buying this game who have already done some research but also by those they intend to play it with (who may know nothing). I hope I can achieve this in general enough terms that we avoid a rulebook rehash,

Also, I am bolding certain sections of the post to show the "highlights"

I'm now up to 4 games played of Android and am loving it!

CAVEAT: I would recommend, from experience, that you don't try and teach four players at once! At least not while trying to play as well.

What I am currently liking a lot is how the different investigators are forced, due to their strengths and weaknesses, to take sometimes very different approaches to winning. Though I have never won

I was also impressed (as you'll see) by how despite the killing of one of their suspects in two consecutive games, the (same) winner still adapted and came out on top.

To people who don't know much about the game, I will explain its structure in very general terms. This next section is partially adapted from an email I sent to someone to see if they wanted to play.

================The Game itself - what is it?==================

Android is a game that, like many others, uses the universally accepted all-purpose nebulous currency of Victory Points (VPs).

The winner of the game is the player with the most VPs at the end of the game. (well, duh!)

The trouble is, every turn you have a very limited amount of time to do things - usually allowing for a total of 6 "time" points. The task you have is to use your time well enough to score many points, while fighting off other players traps and roadblocks.

Your characters have a lot of personal stuff to use and think about - a guilty and an innocent hunch to prove, their own stories you live through during the game, and two decks of cards, one that helps them, and one that hurts them.

The detail of the plots, cards and how they work is unnecessary for a review like this, but I think it's worth taking a look at how you can get those all important victory points.

There are three points scoring methods;

1. endings to plots (between -10pts and 14pts),
2. having the right hunches (0pts if unsuccessful to 25pts if both guilty and innocent is correct),
3. picking up tokens from three places (Haas and Jinteki token 3vp each, conspiracy line completions 4vp each).

Aside from scoring for completed lines (horizontal, vertical and diagonal sets of five) the conspiracy puzzle does something even more crucial - it can modify any or all the other points scoring methods by anything from 1vp extra up to potentially 4vp extra. It can also make things that are worthless except in exchange (the favours) crucial to victory.

=======So this puzzle is the key to everything?======

Not always, but perhaps.... the cool thing about the puzzle is you can only do it if you forgo your right (and time) to do something else important (namely work toward your hunches) - Android is a game where you have very limited time resources to do everything.

You can't afford to ignore the conspiracy though.

FWIW, I think the puzzle can easily be underestimated as a force in the game. Even if you don't want to spend time on it, rest assured that it will affect the outcome of the game significantly if someone else does.

To show this fully, take a look at how it affected our last two games.

=========================Last Weekend==========================

The conspiracy puzzle was defining in both games this last weekend, but in very different ways - take a look and see why.

In the game I played Saturday the conspiracy was complete by turn 4 - everyone wanted some of those crucial 4VP tokens - and the outcome of the conspiracy ended up benefitting the eventual winner most - who crucially had his Guilty Hunch killed off in the process.

The way the conspiracy does this well is that depending on the connections different things become important in different games. In this game it was Street favours - where else could you gain 3VP a turn for just 2 time? Nowhere! They soon ran out.

The other fascinating fact here was that thanks to all those connections, the Innocent hunches came out worth a full 11pts each, as opposed to the 5 they usually are.

Since Guilty Hunches were only worth 17, the conspiracy drastically reduced the points swing between guilty and innocent hunches (there's usually a ten point gap), leading to higher scores and a closer run result (1st Position had 56, 2nd 55 and third 53 - fourth btw had 45. Less said about 5th the better (-7!!!!)) I was third (behind my brother AND my wife, which shows the accessibility of this since Mrs Algo is only an occasional gamer) despite having the guilty hunch!

How did I only come third when I had the highest scoring thing, Guilty hunch, in the game - you may ask? It wasn't because I'm incompetent! Honest!

This was because my innocent hunch was the guy who had been killed (D'OH!), meaning I had lost those 11 points (though bro would still have won if he'd managed to keep him alive and guilty)

By contrast, in the second game I played, with three detectives on Sunday, with some of the same players (mum and bro) the conspiracy was virtually "pointless" though it led to the killing off of the eventual winners innocent hunch, and only Jinteki tokens had four extra points. What Raymond (me) was able to do, was bluff people into chasing Political favours (worth four each for most of the game) and on the last turn, turned the relevant conspiracy piece around and blocked off the relevant link meanign that their hard earned political favours were now worthless! I also totally monopolised the 4vp tokens by leaving no legal placement spaces for pieces very early on (about turn four).

I appreciate that without reading all the cards one won't know this last move could happen, and no-one knew it was coming, but it serves to underline the effect the conspiracy can have on final scoring. (1st place 35pts, 2nd 31pts, 3rd 16pts)

(another cool thing that happened in this game was that an event reduced our "time points per turn" by one for most of the second week. This meant our plans had to be changed on the fly)

=====Get to the point now, Algo!=====

The fact I still came second in the second game despite totally controlling the puzzle shows the flexibility and multiplicity of paths to victory in this great game - and the three player game came in at under three hours. I think this will see more play than TI:3 in terms of gaming hours!

Oh, and about that -7 score in the first game. That was my mum's score (and is a sad indictment of my teaching) BUT she still enjoyed the game enough that it was her suggestion we play again on Sunday. That game she got 16 (and would have had 28 save for my last turn butchery of her points with the conspiracy). I put this down to the fact that Rachel Beckmann appears to be a very tough character to play with rather than any particular poorness on mum's part. This detective seems to have it rough at virtually everything and her money vps didn't make up for it.

On the whole, I was very please I managed to teach the game to four people at once (on Saturday) with mostly success (sorry mum) and this was a hugely fun weekend, with games of Shadows Over Camelot, Princes Of Florence and BSG as well. Just a great, great weekend.

AND I got a Curry one night as well. Does life get any better?

==========Alright, alright. But is the game any good?=========


It REALLY deserves a look. I appreciate many will find themselves unhappy with some of its mechanisms and its harshness with "take that" methods of winning, but if you let it, it can become a fantastic way to spend your time.

Plus, it feels to me like, while playing Android, you are actually playing three or four games (a card game, a race to complete the puzzle, evidence placement and plots) all of which are interconnected. The three to four hour running time doesn't really hurt that much given this fact. Sure, you could play four to six games of Shadows over Camelot in the same time as a five player game of Android - my advice would always be DO BOTH!

Then I think about how you have 5 murders (or, minor rule changes to give it the boring explanation) to try out and five very different characters to play as.

While games are even more expensive than ever, and the economy is so bad I think this big box has ALREADY given me value for money at £8 a game or so, since a movie costs about that much.

=========Hmm, interesting, but it sounds complicated========

My advice to new players is not to get hung up on winning the first game so much. There's so much going on you'll get a headache and won't enjoy it.

I've never been too hung up on winning anyway (lucky, really!)) and I don't think anyone who views games as a social and fun activity can get too upset if their first game is a little unsuccessful points-wise (like mum!))

Take it easy and it'll all become clear, on average, about turn four. If you are really insistently unhappy at the disadvantage your mates may let the game be restarted and you can really go for it then.

If not - don't worry, just have fun. It's a fairly forgiving system so long as you keep an eye on your baggage (and remember draws are bad, just like in SoC).

================Wrap it up, half the audience are asleep!============

I'm very impressed with Android - I think everyone should give it a go, it is clear it does not work for everyone and that's fine, but everyone I have tried it with had a good time and got something out of it.

On a personal level, I am pleased with the variety, the value for money side and replay value.

I highly recommend it.

A

P.S. Thanks for reading and I hope whatever your views on Android or my review, your games are always as fun and memorable as this has clearly been for me. All the best!

Last edited on 2009-02-12 11:33:39 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)

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