Boardgame News

Carl Chudyk’s Glory to Rome has been something of a halfway success: The card game has found plenty of fans who can look past the ghastly art and graphic design to discover a wonderfully complicated and dramatic game – but those fans can’t buy copies of the game as Ed Carter, owner of game publisher Cambridge Games Factory, has apparently fallen into a volcano and failed to keep the game in print.

That said, a new version of Glory to Rome is in the works from French publisher Iello according to one of the publisher’s representatives. In two posts in the TricTrac forums, Iello rep Patrice says that the publisher is working on a new version of the game with a different title, possibly for release at Spiel 2010 in October. Among other changes, Patrice says that Iello’s version will have new illustrations, albeit still cartoony ones, and will address the presence of somewhat more imbalanced cards in the most recent version of the game to increase the strategic potential of game play.

Whether a new version of this game will appear in English is still an open question. Keep searching those volcanoes, guys…

Belgian-Mexican publisher Repos Production showed off its Spiel 2010 release at the Cannes game festival in March: a card game from Antoine Bauza called 7 Wonders. (3-7 players, ages 10+, 30 minutes) Miguel Coimbra (Cyclades) is handling the artwork, and the box image above is not final.

French website TricTrac.net posted two videos of Repos’ Cédrick Caumont demonstrating the game, but for those who are French-challenged, here’s a summary of the game play: 7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player, as in Fairy Tale or a Magic: the Gathering booster draft. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided as in Bauza’s Ghost Stories.) Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.

In essence 7 Wonders is a card development game along the lines of Race for the Galaxy or Dominion. Some cards have immediate effects, while others provide bonuses or upgrades later in the game. Some cards provide discounts on future purchases. Some provide military strength to overpower your neighbors and others give nothing but victory points. Unlike Magic or Fairy Tale, however, each card is played immediately after being drafted, so you’ll know which cards your neighbor is receiving and how his choices might affect what you’ve already built up. Cards are passed left-right-left over the three ages, so you need to keep an eye on the neighbors in both directions.

“It is totally addictive,” says Repos’ Thomas Provoost. “The game is the big buzz of the fair. We are very happy about that.”

I think that train and rail games are one of the more interesting sub-genres in the boardgame world, and so I snapped to attention when I learned that Walter Hunt and Gregory Pozerski had designed a game called New England Rails.  As a former inhabitant of Little Rhody, I was interested in any game that would let me build a train network into and out of Providence.  I soon contacted Walter Hunt and he agreed to an e-mail interview, and graciously sent me a copy of the rules.

I was pleased to learn that New England Rails is actually part of a small sub-sub-genre of games that deal with the way businesses interact with a transportation network (Brass, Indonesia, and Container are similar games that spring to mind).  Railroads actually aren’t the primary businesses that players own in New England Rails, but a rail network is essential to generating the most revenue from a player’s holdings.

But I should let Walter speak for himself.

Kris: The railroad genre is one of the most-overcrowded sub-genres of board games.  What made you want to create a type of game that will have to compete with all of Martin Wallace’s train games, the 18xx series of train games, and Mayfair’s crayon-based train games to say nothing of simpler games like Ticket to Ride?  In other words, what is special about New England rails?

Walter: We didn’t start out with the intention of competing with this genre; when we first started working on it, we were trying to introduce some more interactive mechanics to a crayon-rail game set in New England. More terrain; cards to use on other players and to change the distribution of goods; that sort of thing. This was the mid-1980s; 18xx was still just a few games mostly designed by Tresham, Age of Steam and Ticket to Ride didn’t even exist. One of our inspirations was the FASA game “Noble House”, based on the James Clavell novel. That’s a business game, but it’s all about pouncing on a rival at the moment of weakness. We didn’t want to be that vicious. Well, we did, but a lot of that has been written out of the game.

The big change came a little later on when I decided that it would be more interesting to have a game like Silverton.  Sometime in the early 1990s I had a sudden epiphany, and replaced the Empire Builder-style cards with product cards like Silverton’s mines.

I should note that “train games” are a rather all-encompassing category, spanning games like TransAmerica and Ticket to Ride to more brain-burning exercises like Age of Steam and the more baroque forms of 18xx. It’s hard to decide what constitutes a train game. In a way, ours isn’t a train game at all: it’s a business game. Trains are only part of it, though obviously train gamers are a good target audience; they’ll be in familiar surroundings.

Kris: Can you explain the basic mechanics of the game?  What are players trying to accomplish and what do they do in their turn?

Walter: Each turn, players seek to expand their holdings--businesses throughout New England, mail contracts, special routes and their rail network, to earn the most profit. There are three economic conditions, and businesses perform differently depending on whether the condition is Normal, Depression or Prosperity. The game shows what the next two turns will be, and each turn the condition for the turn-after-next is forecast, so players can plan.

There are three sections to each turn. In the first section, events and economic condition forecasting takes place, and new businesses and action cards are made available (by drafting: twice the number of cards as players are drawn from the current business deck, and each player may select one to keep or put into play.) In the second section, players may take two actions; these are either card actions (play a business, play an action card, claim a special route or state subsidy, claim a mail contract) or building actions (build depots, Power Grid style). In the third section, players pay interest on loans and collect income.

In some ways, the game is sort of a love-child of Silverton and Power Grid; the businesses look a little like Silverton mines, except that there’s no dice rolling and there is an increased income if a player’s rail network includes a market city; and building is done Power Grid fashion, counting the distance between an existing depot and the target one and paying the cost plus a fee for the depot itself. Unlike Silverton, however, and like Power Grid, the player owns the depot and not the track: indeed, the idea of “connection” (for a larger profit) has nothing to do with either distance or a specific series of track segments, but merely a depot in the business’s location and a depot in one (or more) market cities--Boston, New York or Montréal.

Kris: So players acquire various businesses.  How is a business different from a depot?  What is the function of a depot?  Do players simply draft business cards or is there a price involved?

Walter: A business is a card with a product type, a location, and a price. Each business has two income levels for each economic condition, depending on whether it is connected or unconnected. See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/683085/new-england-rails for a sample. Players can have eight businesses in play.

A depot is a marker on a location. For a business to be connected (and thus receive the higher income), the player must have a depot in the location where the business is located, and a depot in one or more market cities.

Kris: Do businesses generate income every turn, or do players have to fulfill certain conditions to make businesses profitable?

Walter: Businesses generate income every turn, but players may alter their portfolio depending on game conditions and as better businesses appear.  Also, builds on the board affect income by connecting businesses.

Kris: How complex will New England Rails be?  How many players can it accommodate?  How long will it take to play?

Walter: It’s no more complicated than a medium-weight game like Power Grid, though it does require players to do some advance planning--watching out for economic change, guarding against events and other players’ actions, having enough money to pay for loans and to do what they want to do.

It should be about 30 minutes per player, and can accommodate 2-5 players. It’s received the most play with four, but works well with as few as two.  Each player starts in one of the five New England state capitals other than Massachusetts; in the four-player there’s no Rhode Island player, in the three-player there’s no Maine player.

Kris: How much playtesting has the game received?  How did Rio Grande Games come to publish it?

Walter: The game has been in development for more than twenty years. There are friends who have played many different versions, and we have a big notebook of rules ideas and questions, a dozen sets of older business cards and numerous versions of the economic model. It’s nice to see it come out in this form, but it’s changed a lot over time.

Rio Grande is not the first company to take an interest, but Jay Tummelson believed that the game would resonate with some part of his audience. He also demonstrated that he believed in the game and in our ability to get it ready for market. I can’t speak too highly of him, and give him credit for his insights and advice on how to streamline the design to make the game successful. He made an offer on the game last year and we’re now starting the final approach to publication.

Kris: When will New England Rails likely be published?

Walter: It’s really up to Jay Tummelson, but we hope to see it later in 2010.  Since the art is nearing final, I’m expecting that production can’t be far away.

Kris: A lot of historical and regional flavor has been baked into the business, event, and special route cards.  What books did you use to research American businesses of the period?

Walter: Too numerous to mention, but the rail lines are based on a Hammond atlas with actual train routes (it predates the Interstate Highway System), and the cities are placed and chosen based on my copy of the Ninth Census of the United States (1870). For example, Rockingham VT is now called Bellows Falls--but it wasn’t then.

Kris: I’ve got a feeling that New England Rails will impress the kind of gamers who enjoy Power Grid or Brass.  And I could easily imagine that the game engine could be used for games about other regions.

Walter: I sure hope so.

Kris: I kept picturing a game about Pennsylvania oil fields, Ohio steel mills, West Virginia coal mines, and Chicago stockyards.  If New England Rails is a hit, do you have any plans to create one or more sequels?

Walter: I have thought about the Pennsylvania oil/coal style game, but we currently have a New York game under development. It features the Erie Canal system and some aspects of a legislative game that we pared out of the New England game. I’ve already got a pile of prototype set of business cards and a sketch map, but we’re a ways from even discussing details yet.

Kris: What other kinds of projects would you like to work on?

Walter: Greg and I have kicked around a spice trade game set in the 16th and 17th century, and he’s very interested in King Philip’s War. We’re waiting to see if the new game on that subject is satisfying--if not, we may dive into that.

It’s a little strange to have the prospect of a new project--this one has been in the works so long that it’s hard to imagine it being in the past rather than the future.

Kris: Thanks for the interview.

Game store owner Marcus King has started a roughly weekly column for ICv2, and from my experience with him on a private industry forum, I think gamers will appreciate hearing what’s involved with being a game retailer. For his first column, King writes about the various ways to define whether a game is a “success”:

As a retailer:  A game, to me, is successful when it helps me achieve a STATIC relationship with a consumer base – and said base becomes a revenue stream (just like retailers are for distributors, and distributors are for publishers). Thus, in my experience, only about 2 to 3 percent of all CCGs released have ever been successful for me.

By Michele Mura
March 11, 2010

[Editor’s note: As I mentioned in a March 2010 news item, Jerusalem will make its public debut this coming weekend at the PLAY game festival in Modena, Italy, with copies on sale in April 2010 from Red Glove and later from ElfinWerks. (2-4 players, ages 12+, 90 minutes, $55/€40) Here, Mura talks about the origins of the game. —WEM]

The first basic idea of Jerusalem came up some years ago, specifically during 2003. I started the project with a friend of mine, Filippo, because we decided to make a game with four hands and two brains. The first background of the game was about our city: Pisa during the 12th century, when families struggled to build the highest house tower, a symbol of power and wealth.

Since the start of our development the two main mechanisms for interaction in the game were placement and majority. We chose to divide the city into five sectors with different revenues: money, men, and tower points. This last resource was the only way to build new floors for the tower and thus win the game.

The first prototype

We playtested the game quite a lot – at least one hundred times but maybe many more – and when we thought it was ready, we sent the prototype to two very important German publishers. They liked the game but told us that it needed more improvement; in other words, it was not yet ready to be published.

It took some years for me to take the project into my hands once again, but this time I was alone in the development process and with some experience from my two previously published games, Easy School and Lungarno. I collected a lot of suggestions and advice from many playtesters, who I wish to thank a lot. (Also, Andreas Seyfarth shared with me some very good ideas to get a better game.) The main problems involved balancing the different roles, the length of the game, and some other things about the building of the towers.

Together with my publisher, Federico Dumas, a.k.a. Mr. Red Glove, we chose to change the background and found that Jerusalem during the First Crusade fit very well with the game system and also with other key features. Players now take on the roles of European families who conquered Jerusalem. I also interviewed two experts to get a lot of information about Jerusalem and its medieval history.

Converting to Judaism

The goal I wanted to reach was to obtain a game with a very simple rule set without any exceptions – but at the same time give players a lot of freedom with many opportunities to get control and win the game.

I worked a lot on this new version of the game – another sixty or seventy times played – and I added a lot of new features and fine tuned the main core to balance everything. I removed a lot of glitches that slowed the flow, I changed significantly the event system, added special powers to the roles, introduced a completely new building system for tower floors, and focused on the general gaming experience. Jerusalem is not another majority game in which you have to collect the most victory points, but a more original mix between worker placement and majority. What I like best about it is that you have to reduce your power to win…

Only one technical note: In the very first version of the game, you built a new floor for each four tower points but you lost any excess points. Now, building costs are progressive, and you have to pay extra when you are the first builder of the highest floor.

Click for a much larger look at the developing art and design

Another key aspect of this product is the graphics. We worked hard with two clever Italian artists, Guido and Eva, to create a dramatic game board with realistic graphics and colors but with a very distinctive profile. They drew many sketches to evaluate a lot of different scenes and combinations, and we consulted books and pictures to take inspiration. For the cover we chose to focus on the knight as the important subject, and I like a lot the final logo of the game.

What I have to say last is that I’m very eager to discover what gamers will think about it. Jerusalem is quite a lot deeper than Lungarno; it’s nastier than that previous game, and players have to think about their moves with attention. After seven years to get the final product, I hope your games with Jerusalem will be as adventurous as my journey though its publishing!

Designer Bruno Faidutti has posted information about and images from Isla Dorada, which he says will be released by French publisher Funforge at the Spiel convention in Essen, Germany in October 2010. Here’s a brief game description from Faidutti:

Players are bold explorers whose zeppelin just crashed in the center of a mysterious and unexplored island where legends tell that ancient civilizations have left fabulous treasures.

Together, players will enter the heart of darkness and explore the unknown island, cross the jungle on gorillaback, witness savage rituals, avoid the lake monsters and deal with the the many vicious animals and other dangers of Isla Dorada, the Gold Island. Then, if they are valorous and lucky enough, they will find the treasures and bring them back to the old world.

Designers Alan R. Moon, Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia are also listed on the game’s logo, but Faidutti’s name gets top billing. As he explains in a long history of this game’s ten-year development cycle, Isla Dorada was born from Faidutti’s love of Moon’s Elfenroads and Elfenland and his efforts to overlay Angiolino and Paglia’s Ulysses on the Elfenland gameboard.

The history makes for fascinating reading, especially when you discover how rejections from both Amigo and Days of Wonder ended up making this game a more attractive package, in terms of game play, setting and graphics. As with Funforge’s production of Pony Express, by Faidutti and Antoine Bauza, the artwork is amazing. Head to the history page above to take a look…

Klaus Teuber has published his fourth article on the reform of the Catan Card Game on Catan.com. (Links to the first article, second article and third article.)

In this article, Teuber explores the history of Catan itself, as developed in the Die Siedler von Catan novel by Rebecca Gablé, then further expanded upon by Teuber:

If Catan were a large island in the area of today’s Azores (the Azores were not discovered until 1427), chances would not have been too bad for other seafarers to reach the island. And indeed, in 960 the Viking prince Carl Gabelbart lands with a large fleet on the shores of Catan. Carl didn’t actually want to sail to Catan but was on a Viking journey heading south; however, a storm set in and carried his longships filled with warriors off course, far to the west.

Carl is impressed by Catan’s beauty and fertility and decides to conquer the island and become its ruler. But first it is necessary to boost his men’s morale and satisfy their most important need: women.

Oh, really? Teuber goes on to explain how the events within this history lead to various Theme Sets for Die Fürsten von Catan – as the new card game will be called – such as the “Times of Turmoil” related to the events described above or “The Era of the Merchant Princes.” As previously noted, each of the three Theme Sets included in Die Fürsten von Catan, due for release from Kosmos and Mayfair Games in Q3/Q4 2010, has 24 cards that are mixed with the cards of the Introductory Game. An expansion containing additional Theme Sets will be released in 2011.

Teuber also shares a half-dozen sketches from artist Michael Menzel, along with Menzel’s descriptions of same, to show off the graphics of the new edition. Interesting to learn that Menzel works entirely with Photoshop on a graphics tablet, with 3-6 hours spent on each card image. Those hours really add up!

U.S. publisher Indie Boards & Cards will release Sean Ross’ card game Haggis in a limited release version in Q1-Q2 2010.

Haggis is a climbing-card game along the lines of Tichu and Big Two that’s designed specifically for two or three players. The deck consists of 54 cards in five suits, with each player starting the game with a Jack, Queen and King – which are all wild – and 14 other random cards. The lead player in a trick plays a set, sequence or bomb, with other players needing to follow with a similarly sized set or sequence or higher-ranking bomb. Players can bet on whether they’ll empty their hand first, and players score points for both cards captured and cards in the hand on an opponent when they go out. Games are won by reaching a pre-agreed upon pont total.

You can download the rules for Haggis (PDF) from BoardGameGeek. To receive notice of when the limited edition is available, you must subscribe to the Indie Boards & Cards newsletter.

Hi, Miss Meeples, I run a game group and I’m noticing that one of the members isn’t quite keeping up with more complex games – he mainly likes party games and doesn’t seem to take to more “complex” games like Through the Ages or Battlestar Galactica. Any time he plays such a game, he really seems to be struggling and doesn’t seem to enjoy the experience and takes a VERY long time to make decisions, to the point of it being painful and uncomfortable for the other players.

At the same time, he doesn’t seem to notice that he’s not keeping up and is becoming a liability for the other players; he won’t bow out or say, “This is just not my cup of tea, so I’ll wait for another game that’s more my style.” Most of the time we’re diplomatic and just put up with it, and we don’t want to hurt his feelings, but is there a better approach to this delicate situation? Thanks…

Complex games can easily break down into very slow moving affairs, making them last a long time and convincing people never to play these types of games again just because of the time involved. I think that it’s important when you play these kinds of games that you explain this experience beforehand, and ask that people try to move the game along before playing.

If this encouragement doesn’t work for this particular player, then you can explain to him privately that a certain pace is expected while playing more complex games and that unfortunately he’s not keeping up, making the other players uncomfortable. If he still doesn’t get it, then I think you’ll need to suggest alternate activities, depending on your situation. For example, I’m having a meetup this weekend for 90+ minute strategy games. If someone whom I thought couldn’t handle the complexity wanted to come, I’d suggest a different gaming venue for him or her.

Now, not everyone has this luxury and if you don’t, then you will have to be firm with the person and ask him not to play. If the situation is such that he’s one of four or so people who are invited to play, and there’s no other alternative game for him to play, then you’ll need to decide how much you need him. If he’s the fourth for a game of Tichu, you will be stuck. You also want to avoid him being the only one not playing because that is not fair or comfortable for anyone involved.

I realize this is a lot of if’s and I also realize I could have written back to clarify the exact situation. However, I wanted to discuss different scenarios so that others may get some help, too.

A comment from my last column:

...the fact that no one out of the 99 boardgamers at this group is willing to accommodate [a problem person] after two meetings. From my experience, a group that is only a fraction of that size already has quite a range of people with varying levels of social skills. In an open gaming meeting, that is often the price you pay, if you look at it in terms of your own personal enjoyment. That is why many people I know host invitation-only gaming at their homes.

My only two regular gaming nights are both open to the public, and that means that sometimes I game with people who are not the types of people with whom I would normally enjoy spending my free time. Does that make those people truly “harmful”?

In my experience, when a player is dragging things down or exhibiting inappropriate behavior, the best way to deal with the situation is speaking with him about it (preferably not in front of the group). Either that person will want to change to continue to be part of the group, or you have grounds to discontinue the invitation.

Confrontation is by no means easy, especially when it deals with personal issues (such as “Would you please take a shower before you come to the game night"), but again, that is one of the responsibilities of an open gaming group organizer.

I do appreciate this person’s honesty in struggling with the question, and his clear concern for both the 99 and the 1.

For me, these types of situations require 1) healthy boundaries, 2) when necessary, confrontation in love, and 3) sometimes sacrificing myself – and the 99 – for the one. Posted by Jeff Allers on Feb 26, 2010

I agree with most of Jeff’s posting. I’m not sure, though, how much real difference there is between an “open” gaming group at a game store or other semi-private place and a home. For those of us who are running meetups in our homes, yes, it’s “invitation only” but it’s usually pretty easy to get an invitation (which is why we use Meetup.com). Also, the game store that I’m most familiar with has some pretty clear social requirements for gaming there.

What concerns me most (and I had mentioned this previously in the comments) is sacrificing people for a single person, despite the issues that person may have. A couple of months ago, I found myself spending a lot of time with a particularly problematic player in my group. I thought about it later and realized that I wasn’t being fair to the other players who had attended the meetup and that I was ignoring them for this person. You can never assume that just because someone behaves “normally” that that person doesn’t also have major issues in their life and they are playing games to help them get through what’s going on in their life. To subject these people to someone who is not following the rules, is testing the boundaries, and is generally annoying, upsetting, or immature is not fair. And I won’t do it. I’ve said this before, but in the end you can play board games only if others are willing to play with you. It’s your responsibility to make playing games with you a pleasant experience. It’s not the responsibility of other people to put up with someone who is outside of the boundaries. No one has to take that on.

Now, if there’s someone with obvious issues, and you (as an organizer) ask people whether they will work with that person, then I’m fine with that because people can say no. But when you seat these types of people at a table with others who don’t know what’s going on, that’s neither fair nor social and will generally cause resentment. Note I’m not saying that’s what Jeff would do. Resentment can lead to people not coming back, which would then make the whole situation worse.

Enough for this week! Comments are welcome! Questions for me to answer in the column are needed, too!

U.S. publisher Bucephalus Games will release an expansion for Kachina, most likely in Q3-Q4 2010, according to designer Scott Caputo. “No official name yet for the expansion,” he says. “My playtesters were really excited about this expansion, so I have high hopes for it when it’s released.”

In a February 2010 post on BoardGameGeek, Caputo sheds more light on what players might see in an expansion:

I’m not sure how many details I should release at this time since I don’t know if Bucephalus Games plans on making any changes to the expansion I submitted to them. But I think I can safely say the Kachina expansion will feature at least four new kachinas with interesting new powers. The expansion has been designed to keep the game length close to the same and to make the game even more compelling for 4-5 players. Of course, the new kachina powers should make the game even more fun and strategic for all numbers of players.

I wish I could say more about Kachina, but the one time I played, I was literally falling asleep between turns late at night at Spiel. Kudos to my fellow players at the time for not mocking my weary self…

Here’s something I missed a couple of weeks ago: Horus Heresy designer Jeff Tidball writing about the dream of designing and developing a “mountains-of-plastic-figures” game for Fantasy Flight. An excerpt:

The challenge in adapting any story (be it a comic, novel, film, or whatever) into a game (be it a board game, card game, or roleplaying game) is that there’s a fundamental difference between what a story is and what a game is: In a story, the author tells you what happens. In a game, you decide.

After giving it some thought, I set this goal for myself: At the end of the day, I wanted it to be possible for just about everything that happens in the canonical Horus Heresy story to be able to happen in the game. But at the same time, I wanted lots of other things to be possible, too. As much as Warhammer 40,000 fans love the canonical narrative, I don’t think they want to just re-enact those same events blow by blow and die-roll by die-roll. They want to try out different decisions. They want to play “What if?”

German publisher Zoch is introducing a new game line for kids from Elena Fyrogeni called “Zozzle,” apparently a portmanteau of “Zoch” and “puzzle.” (2-4 players, ages 6+, 15-20 minutes, €5)

In terms of game play, a Zozzle combines memory and puzzles. The game includes 45 tiles, with five copies of nine different tiles. On a turn, a player turns over two tiles; if they match and the player doesn’t already have that tile in her grid, she adds it to her grid. The first player to complete the 3x3 puzzle wins. Four pictures are available in the opening line: horses, dolphins, a dog of some sort, and the official German gaming animal, the polar bear. Rules available on the Zoch website, although they’re not much longer than what I wrote above.

Designer Horst Rokitte self-published the game Attandarra in 2009 and has been selling copies through his website Spiele-Idee.de. (2-4 players, ages 12+, 60-75 minutes, €25)

In Attendarra, the original name of the German town Attendorn, players each try to build up their own city (from a personal set of city tiles) over five rounds by spending gold for four types of building materials: clay, wood, stone and glass. Players take actions in turn each round until they run out of gold, with the possible actions being to buy building materials and build something, place a meadow or fire reservoir on the personal city board, or acquire citizens or coins for their completed buildings. To build something, you need to use at least two types of building material, and once you start using a more valuable type of material, such as stone, you can’t backtrack to use clay or wood. Players score points based on the quality of their buildings and the quantity of citizens and coins in their city. A variant game adds city gate and city history tiles.

Rokitte has now released English and Dutch rules on his website, in addition to the already present German rules (PDFs all), so if you were previously curious about the game but wary of language issues, you can now check it out.

Update, March 11, 2010: Fixed the English rules PDF link.

Zev Shlasinger at Z-Man Games has passed on word that he will release Corné van Moorsel’s Factory Fun, originally self-published by van Moorsel through Cwali in 2006. Shlasinger announced no other details at this time, such as whether the Z-Man version will differ in any way from Cwali’s – such as including the small expansion van Moorsel released in 2010 – or what the game will cost.

For those who haven’t played the game, a brief description: Each player starts with an empty factory, then acquires machine tiles by competing against other players for them. Each machine has one or more inputs and one or more outputs; all of the inputs must connect to a supply of the right color or a properly-colored output from another machine, while all the outputs must feed into inputs (without forming loops) or dump the colored ooze into holding bins. You can add tubes as needed to connect machines, but tubes cost points, so build smartly and keep the ooze under control.

As for a release date, Shlasinger said that he doesn’t have a hard date yet, but ideally he’ll have Factory Fun out in Q4 2010. This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.

German publisher GameHeads will release Michael Nietzer’s Unter Geiern – Among Vultures – in May 2010. (2-6 players, ages 10+, 30 minutes) In the game, players are vultures on the search for food in the desert. Since you are a vulture, naturally anything dead or decaying will do – the problem is that once you spot something, everyone else will swoop down for a peck, too. Claim thirty prey points before any of your ravenous rivals, and you’ll be the king carrion chomper.

GameHeads has started posting details of Unter Geiern on its website, with one section available now detailing what the various cards are and how to set up the array of desert cards based on the number of players. More chapters to follow in the weeks ahead…

The sixth Swiss game designers’ meeting takes place May 1-2, 2010 at Le Musée Suisse du Jeu – the Swiss Museum of Games. Designers Niek Neuwahl and Kris Burm will be the guests for this year’s event, so as co-organizer Sébastien Pauchon writes, “part of the disussions will be about abstract games, as you can guess.”

All game designers, whether Swiss or not, are welcome to attend the event and have their prototypes critiqued by a peer group of designers. For the cost of the event and schedule of activities, along with application details, visit this information page.

Cyril Demaegd of Ystari Games has passed along images from the company’s new version of Michael Schacht’s Industry to show off the new look. Note that both the cover and gameboard are still works in progress. As for U.S. distribution of the game, Demaegd says that nothing has been finalized as of yet but the game will be released outside of Europe.

Hi Miss Meeples, I run a game group and I’m noticing that one of the members isn’t quite keeping up with more complex games --- he mainly likes party games and doesn’t seem to take to more “complex” games like Through the Ages or Battlestar Galactica. Any time he plays such a game, he really seems to be struggling and doesn’t seem to enjoy the experience and takes a VERY long time to make decisions, to the point of it being painful and uncomfortable for the other players. At the same time, he doesn’t seem to notice that his not keeping up is becoming a liability for the other players and won’t bow out or say “this is just not my cup of tea, I’ll wait for another game that’s more my style”. Most of the time we’re diplomatic and just put up with it, and we don’t want to hurt his feelings, but is there a better approach to this delicate situation? Thanks…

Complex games can easily break down into very slowly moving affairs, making them last a long time and convincing people never to play these types of games again just because of the time involved.  I think that it’s important when you are playing these kinds of games that you explain this experience beforehand, and ask that people try to move the game along before playing. If this doesn’t work for this particular player, then you can explain to him privately that a certain pace is expected while playing more complex games and that unfortunately he’s not keeping up, making the other players uncomfortable. If he still doesn’t get it, then I think you’ll need to suggest alternate activities, depending on your situation. For example, I’m having a meetup this weekend for 90+ minute strategy games. If someone whom I thought couldn’t handle the complexity wanted to come, I’d suggest a different gaming venue for him or her. Now not everyone has this luxury and if you don’t, then you will have to be firm with the person, asking him not to play.  If the situation is such that he’s one of four or so people who are invited to play, and there’s no other alternative game for him to play, then you’ll need to decide how much you need him. If he’s the fourth for a game of Tichu you will be stuck. You also want to avoid him being the only one not playing because that is not fair or comfortable for anyone involved.

I realize this is a lot of if’s and I also realize I could have written back to clarify the exact situation. However I wanted to discuss different scenarios so that others may get some help too.

A comment from my last column:

….. the fact that no one out of the 99 boardgamers at this group is willing to accommodate [a problem person] after two meetings.  From my experience, a group that is only a fraction of that size already has quite a range of people with varying levels of social skills.  In an open gaming meeting, that is often the price you pay, if you look at it in terms of your own personal enjoyment.  That is why many people I know host invitation-only gaming at their homes.

My only two regular gaming nights are both open to the public, and that means that sometimes I game with people who are not the types of people with whom I would normally enjoy spending my free time.  Does that make those people truly “harmful”?

In my experience, when a player is dragging things down or exhibiting inappropriate behavior, the best way to deal with the situation is speaking with him about it (preferably not in front of the group).  Either that person will want to change to continue to be part of the group, or you have grounds to discontinue the invitation. 

Confrontation is by no means easy, especially when it deals with personal issues (such as “Would you please take a shower before you come to the game night"), but again, that is one of the responsibilities of an open gaming group organizer.

I do appreciate this person’s honesty in struggling with the question, and his clear concern for both the 99 and the 1.

For me, these types of situations require 1)healthy boundaries, 2)when necessary, confrontation in love, and 3)sometimes sacrificing myself--and the 99--for the one. Posted by Jeff Allers on Feb 26, 2010

I agree with most of Jeff’s posting. I’m not sure though how much real difference there is between an ‘open’ gaming group at a game store or other semi-private place and a home though. For those of us who are running meetups in our homes, yes, it’s ‘invitation only’ but it’s usually pretty easy to get an invitation (which is why we use meetup.com). Also the game store that I’m most familiar with has some pretty clear social requirements for gaming there.

What concerns me most (and I had mentioned this previously in the comments) is sacrificing people for a single person, despite the issues that person may have. A couple of months ago, I found myself spending a lot of time with a particularly problematic player in my group. I thought about it later, and realized that I wasn’t being fair to the other players who had attended the meetup and that I was ignoring them for this person. You can never assume that just because someone behaves ‘normally’ that that person doesn’t also have major issues in their life and they are playing games to help them get through what’s going on in their life. To subject these people to someone who is not following the rules, is testing the boundaries, and is generally annoying, upsetting, or immature is not fair. And I won’t do it. I’ve said this before, but in the end you can only play board games if others are willing to play with you. It’s your responsibility to make playing games with you a pleasant experience. It’s not other people’s problem to put up with someone who is outside of the boundaries. No one has to take that on.

Now if there’s someone with obvious issues, and you (as an organizer) ask people if they will work with that person, then I’m fine with that because people can say no. But when you seat these types of people at a table with others who don’t know what’s going on, that’s just not fair nor social and will generally cause resentment. Note I’m not saying that’s what Jeff would do. Resentment can lead to people not coming back, which would then make the whole situation worse. 

Enough for this week! Comments are welcome! Questions for me to answer in the column are needed too!

Z-Man Games has posted a game page for Daniel George’s Road Kill Rally with pics of the components and a release date of June 2010. (3-6 players, ages 12+, 60-120 minutes, $60) Here’s a brief description from the publisher:

2035 – The Road-Kill Rally becomes a worldwide phenomenon, attracting contestants from throughout the world. Ratings exceed three billion for the Rally Cup Finals, making it the most watched spectacle in human history.

As a driver in the Road-Kill Rally, you are racing against opponents eager to destroy you with guns, rockets and flame throwers. But the big points come from scoring pedestrians: running them over or blasting them out of the road. After all, you have three billion viewers to satisfy.

Think of this as Car Wars meets Death Race 2000.

The page includes a rules link (PDF) for those who want more details. This game has been updated on Gone Cardboard.

Z-Man Games has also unveiled the logo for a future release, Earth Reborn, that apparently features a world littered with metal, bullets, blood and eyeballs. No other info at the moment.