Santa Fe variations

Clippers is a new board game from French publisher Eurogames, who nowadays produce English language editions of their games from the start. It is an Alan Moon design and fans of his games will recognise it as a development of Santa Fe (interestingly, GMT has just produced another version of the game, Santa Fe Rails). The original game was about building rail networks across the USA. This is about sailing routes across Polynesia. The various clipper lines start their routes in the eastern Pacific and players can extend any of them along the links shown on the board. You gain money for placing the first route to an island and money adds to your points at the end of the game. Points are scored for those islands at which you have a base: the value of the island multiplied by the number of different clipper lines that reach it. You will not be surprised to learn that the islands increase in value from east to west across the board. Players start with a couple of bases on the western edge, giving them a target to aim for.

At the start of each turn, players choose an option and then get two turns of adding links to the clipper routes. This is done by placing a couple of wooden sticks (about matchstick size - not unlike the roads in Settlers) on the board. The option a player has chosen can change this. S/he might be laying lots of links, but not scoring, adding a new base or starting a branch from one of the lines, for example. Each option costs money, so you have to weigh up what is worth paying for. I found that the 'lay twice as many pieces and gain double bonuses' option was well worth doing early on as a way of building up cash reserves. However the other options all have their tactical value. As the game progresses you need to get your bases down, and deciding when to do this is important. Too early and people will steer the clipper lines away from your bases; too late and the best spots will have gone. As there is a set number of pieces for each line, you also need to keep track of how far the lines can go. Once a few branches have opened up, the pieces can get used up very quickly.

This is a clever strategy game with plenty of tactical subtleties. The one problem is some aspects of the production. While everything is high quality, the cardboard dots that are the bases are fiddly to use - and very easy to lose. The lines on the board are drawn close together, making it difficult to see whether a particular route is single or double once a piece has been laid. So players need to take a bit of care with the game, but it repays the investment. A good 8/10.

There was a new game from Valentin Herman and Fanfor, too. This is Life is Money. An intriguing title, but I'll have to wait to find out more.

Franjos had a new edition of Billabong (designed by Eric Solomon) on display. The game is that rare things, an abstract game that works well for more than two players. It's about jumping your kangaroos the board (the billabong's in the middle) and has no luck element.

Another newcomer was Gecko Games, sharing space with Doris & Frank, who didn't have a new game this year (their new 'production' is Jari Timmo Nestel, was born on 13th May 2002 and made it along to the show for a while). Gecko's game was Trias by Ralf Lehmkuhl. The game features dinosaurs and continental drift! The board is made of hexagonal tiles that gradually move apart. This is game I really want to play, but didn't get a chance at the show. Opinions from others were mixed: some enthusiastic and some disappointed. Definitely one to try.

And then there was a British firm in amongst everything. Gen Four Two are the people behind Hive, a two-player game by John Yianni. The pieces, on smart, hexagonal, wooden blocks show pictures of various insects. Each has a different move, so game play is a bit Chess-like as the two players jostle for strategic (or tactical) advantage. Very interesting and another game I look forward to getting a chance to play.

What can I say about Globopolis? Well, the company had a big stand in the main halls and plenty of ancillary marketing as well. The game is produced by an ex-pat American based in Munich and he's clearly spent a lot of money on Globopolis. On the production of the game's components as well as the marketing. It has a big, solid board, lots of plastic pieces, cards and dice. The spaces on the four sections of the track represent countries (grouped by continent/colour), guilds (that produce resources) and spaces where you pick up a card. Players get a card for each country they 'own'; this shows - among other things - the "conference fee" another player has to pay if s/he lands on that country. The amount depends on whether the country is undeveloped, developed or super-developed.

Sound at all familiar? This game clearly started as a Monopoly variant, but has been developed a long way from that. In fact, it's a wargame. The other thing players can do when they land on someone else's country is attack it! The attack comes from anther country (within constraints) and is resolved by rolling dice - though the actual mechanism is innovative. The other key element in the game is resources. Each country starts with some and a full set means that it's developed - two sets for super-developed. Resources are generated when people land on the right space and can be traded between players. Players score points for each country they own, and more as these are developed. There are a number of other ways to score points and the game ends when someone reaches the target number - most points wins.

However, at its heart the game depends on who lands on what spaces on the board. For example, military units are crucial to combat - and are lost when you lose a battle. There is one space on the board that brings new military units into play. One in about 70. Even though a player can move their pawn several times in a turn, not many military units are going to appear in the course of a game. Add to this a number of problems with the rules and the result is an indifferent game. The marketing muscle that was visible suggests the game will be in the stores, but it's not clear who it's aimed at. It's too luck-based (and clunky!) for hobby games-players and too complicated (and long!) for the mass market. 4/10

GMT Games was another visitor from the US, their second year at the show. On display was the SF-themed, two-player card game, Flagship, that I saw in prototype form last year. Players pit their spaceships fleets against each other, playing cards to enhance their weaponry and shields and damage their opponent's. A solid 7/10 from me. I've mentioned Santa Fe Rails earlier. This is Alan Moon's development of his earlier Santa Fe. It retains most of the original game: players lay pieces to represent the railroad lines of various companies across America in an effort to link them up to the cities they hold cards for. This is an excellently-produced version of a minor classic: 8/10. Finally from GMT we have Rome, a stand-alone edition of one of Reiner Knizia's games from his earlier compendium, Neuen Spiel im Alten Rom.

The selection of games from Goldsieber was not very inspiring. They all seem to be aimed at children. The most interesting of these looked to be Philippe des Pallières's Mein schafe, dein Schafe (originally published as La Guerre des Moutons by Asmodée in France), one of several sheep-themed games at the show. The one 'big' game was Wolfgang Kramer's Goldland - another game I'm looking for an opportunity to play.

After the success of Carcassonne last year, Hans im Glück had both an expansion set and a new version of the game. The expansion set adds extra features to the original game. The new game is Carcassonne - Jäger & Sammler (Hunters and Gatherers). In this game players are laying square tiles to build up a map of a prehistoric landscape, divided between grassland, forests (the equivalent of towns in the original), rivers (roads) and lakes (which divide rivers). As in the original, players gain points by having pieces on completed rivers and forests and in grassland at the end of the game. However, the points for grassland depend on the number of animals shown on the tiles - except for tigers (sabre-toothed, of course), which eat deer, reducing the score. There are also different pieces to play: huts that go on river and lake complexes. At the end of the game, these score for the fish in the interconnected lakes. The final difference is that incomplete forests and rivers do not score points at the end. So, an intriguing variant of the original game, but not really that different. 6/10.

Tom Lehmann's Magellan (alias Pizarro & Co in the English language version from Rio Grande) was another game on the Hans im Glück stand. This is a clever bidding game with a two-part board that allows four different variations. What you're bidding for is a stake in six different explorers: up to three players can share to start with, using their hand of gold cards (everybody starts with the same values) to bid. In the second round, only those already involved can bid to advance further. The third round is shorter still as the two left bid for the final spot. Each explorer either scores points, provides players with extra gold cards or both, with some interesting variations (for example, one version of Cook scores lots of points, but costs an extra card over and above what you bid). To add extra spice, gold cards are worth points at the end, too. This makes for an excellent, highly competitive game from a pretty straightforward set of rules: 9/10.

And finally Hans im Glück had Reiner Knizia's Kampf der Gladiatoren (Battle of the Gladiators is Rio Grande's English language edition). This is a strange little game in which the players have teams of gladiators fighting each other and wild animals in a Roman arena. There are five different kinds of gladiator, each of which has a different advantage. Players put together teams of four, which take on other players' teams. If you've lost all your gladiators, you get to attack with the wild animals that are scattered around for variety. The different gladiators don't seem to make much difference: they basically add one to you or subtract one from the enemy. So the game boils down to lots of dice rolling and I find it unsatisfying. 4/10.

JKLM Games is the vehicle for Markus Welbourne's games. New this year was Zwergen (or Dwarves in its English incarnation). The game didn't look like much at first sight: a dark and dingy background and amateurish artwork. But there is a clever game lurking under the unprepossessing covers. Central to the game is a set of hexagonal tiles, which can be blank or show gold or one of a number of gems. These are set into the board in several layers to start the game off. Gameplay revolves around card play. Players play cards from their hands to gain special actions and pick up tiles from the board - but only tiles that are visible. Some of the actions allow them to exchange tiles for others. The trick is that all these actions allow players gradually to build up their collection of tiles. They score points for these at the end. Plus, each set of gems (diamonds, rubies etc) has a picture on the back of the tiles. There are bonus points for getting bits of the picture that fit together - especially if you get the whole thing. This is a very clever game that rewards strategic play and provides players with a challenge. It's a bit too abstract for my taste, but still worth 8/10.

Looking at the Jumbo stand, I thought they only had children's games this year. However, I'm told I missed Line Up. Unfortunately I don't know anything about it, so can't comment other than to say it's for 2 players only.

As I mentioned earlier, Kidult Game was new to me. They had a large stand next to Jumbo where they were showing two games: Diceland and Dice run, both designed by Spartaco Albertarelli. Diceland is two-player only and I didn't play it. However, it contains lots of dice as well as board tiles showing pieces of countryside. Dice run also has a heap of dice. These are in several different colours and move 'forward' in a race. Moves are dictated by card play and can be all of a colour, a number or a group. The effect is not unlike Formula Motor Racing, except that you start with all the dice in one group that gradually gets spread out into several groups and can have gaps between the groups. When a scoring card comes up, the lead group is evaluated against each player's target chit: colour and number. (For example: if your target is blue 2 and the group is a blue 2, a blue 3 and a green 2, you get 2 for the 2s and 2 for the blues: 4 overall.) Players get chips according to their position and then take a new target. After the last scoring, the player with the most chips wins. This is a nice lightweight game - though the size of the box suggests something bigger. My only problem with it is that nudging the table can disturb the dice! I give it 7/10.

There was a lot of new stuff to see on the Kosmos stand. The big game was Abenteuer Menschheit, which looks to be a prehistoric Settlers game. Designed, of course, by Klaus Teuber. The company also had several Lord of the Rings tie-ins.

One of these was Das Duell, a two-player game by Peter Neugebauer themed around the fight between Gandalf and the Balrog on the bridge in Khazad-Dûm. The game has a little cardboard bridge, which looks good, but doesn't add an awful lot. However gameplay features a more interesting mechanism: players compare the adjacent sides of the cards they've played to see how many hits they score on their opponent. These reduce the characters' strength on a track and thus indicate who wins the round. Unless one player has an overwhelming win, the game is fought over three rounds, followed by a final duel. The luck element is less than you might think as players will get to play just about all their cards. In each of the three rounds, they take a hand of nine cards (of 27), play six and keep three for the final. In the final, they play all nine. With the sudden death ending, players have to balance the risk of losing outright against keeping good cards for the final. Of course, you might risk going for a sudden death win if you think you can pull it off. With special action cards in each deck that are similar, but not identical, for each player, there are some subtleties to this game. I like it: 9/10.

The other Kosmos game I tried was Odins Raben (Odin's Ravens) by Thorsten Gimmler, another two-hander. Everything seems to work, but there's not a lot to the game. Players play cards to move their raven pawn across the landscape provided by a different set of cards. They can also use cards to interfere with their opponent and/or save cards for later (these can be played in addition to cards from your hand, but you have to remember the sequence!). There are lots of special cards that let you do other things than just move your raven. Move the landscape, for example. The first to reach the end of the landscape scores the difference in positions - plus a bonus for playing more of certain types of card (chosen by a random card at the start of the round). The first to 12 points wins - my experience is that this takes about three rounds, which feels the right length. The memory element is light enough not to be a problem, but the game just didn't appeal to me: 5/10.

The third two-player game from Kosmos was Hellas by Franz-Benno (Big City, Trans America) Delonge. This looks interesting, but I didn't get a chance to play it. Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings expansion, Sauron, was also on show, along with the uncredited Die Zwei Türme (The Two Towers), a movie tie-in. Der kleine Prinz (The Little Prince) by Kai Haferkamp is a game based on Saint-Exupéry's children's novel. And that's as much as I know about it, except that it's for 3-6 players and aimed at the 10+ age group.

Nautilus (by Brigitte and Wolfgang Ditt) has been around for a few months. It's an interesting logistics/exploration game as players build up the eponymous underwater research station and sent out subs to explore the deep. It's been described as Outpost light and there is some justice in this. Players have to decide which kind of research they want to do and which of their 'abilities' they want to develop. The aim is then to follow this strategy to better effect than your opponents. It's a good game, but not great: I give it 6/10.

Another game that's been around since the Spring is Alles im Eimer - another fast-moving, fun game and is familiarly known as the bucket game. Designed by Stefan Dorra, it features lots of cardboard buckets in five colours. Well, cardboard pieces with pictures of buckets on, anyway. You start with three buckets of each colour, which you arrange in a triangular formation (5-4-3-2-1), and a hand of cards. The cards show a number and have the same five colours as suits. Now the game starts: in turn players play 1-3 cards and then pick up one. You must follow suit and must beat the (total) value of the cards laid by the previous player. If you can't, you lose a bucket of the appropriate colour. If it's 'supporting' other buckets in your triangle, you lose them too. Oops! Then you start the next 'trick'.

Depending on the number of players, the game is over when a certain number have gone out. The winner/s is/are the player/s with the most buckets left. There are some tactics to this game, but basically it's just fun. It moves pretty quickly, too, and proved a big hit with the people I was playing it with. 9/10, because I like this kind of game.

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