Blog Archives
Monday Brews: 8-12-13
Oh baby! It’s GenCon week! That means I’ve already been staying up way too late as I prepare for the convention. I’ll be providing my GenCon Preparation blog post tomorrow with tons of awesome goodness (maybe). But today is Monday.
That means it’s time to review the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week. Let’s start with the Barley as usual…
The Barley:
Ben Franklin’s Honey: I am nearing the end of my supply of my second homebrew. I had hoped to have a few of these left to bring to GenCon but that’s not the case anymore. Sorry fellow designers. At least we still have PBR!
Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss: This excellent Wisconsin beer is enjoyable to drink, goes down smooth, and has a refreshing taste of honey. This is a favorite summer beer of mine, especially when I’m camping.
Lake Louie Warped Speed Scotch Ale: Lake Louie makes my favorite Scotch Ale. Located in Arena, WI, they have made tasty beer for a while now. But just recently, I believe, they just re-opened their doors for tours. This scotch ale is a really good beer.
Warning: May make other game designers jealous!
Boddington’s Pub Ale: A can of Boddington’s isn’t just an enjoyable beverage. It’s also an enjoyable experience. I brought a couple to Protospiel-Milwaukee and could feel the jealousy of our fellow designer’s as Adam and I cracked the can and listened to the widget exhale. This British pub ale is a very excellent beer, even outside of game designer events! The only downside is that it’s a product on InBev.
Alberti Amber: I have had the last of my first homebrew ever. There’s a little tear running down my cheek. My friend’s seemed to enjoy this one so I may brew it again. Alberti and I had an enjoyable ride.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: I purchased this and the Leinie’s Honey Weiss for our softball team to enjoy after our last game of the season. Thankfully we won the game and became the league champions! That made this beer much more enjoyable, since I’m not typically a Pale Ale or IPA kind of guy.
The Boards:
It was another slow gaming week for me. I’ve been pretty busy prepping for GenCon and haven’t had as much time to actually play games. But here are the two lonely games I played this week:
Qwirkle: This is a great abstract game. In Qwirkle you are trying to complete sets of six tiles of either the same shape or the same color. There is a fun amount of strategy in this game. It’s pretty easy to teach. And since I have the travel edition it is pretty easy to take anywhere!
Scoville: I had the pleasure of testing Scoville with a good friend of mine. He had previously played the game twice, including the 4th ever playtest in Scoville history. We played a very close game until the end when he beat me to a 16 point recipe and I had nothing to fall back on. I love that about the game though; Sometimes you just have to make sure you get what you want first! I ended up losing, but the game was a lot of fun. Here’s a picture from early on in the game at our camping table:
Sometimes playing by the light of a lantern is really fun!
Miscellany…
Last Friday was my birthday. And it happened to coincide with the receiving of two Kickstarter project rewards and one Blogiversary prize!
The special Kickstarter variant “Mimic” box.
On Friday before we left for camping I received my Dungeon Roll game from Tasty Minstrel Games. Dungeon Roll comes is a sweet treasure chest box. It includes a bunch of custom dice and hero cards. I have not yet played, but since there were over 10,000 backers there’s no shortage of people who have gotten it to the table. Congrats to Tasty Minstrel on a very successful campaign!
Then when I got home from camping I learned that my Catan Board had arrived. This was expected to arrive in April, so that’s a little disappointing. But the product looks really nice. I’m hoping that it works as advertised.
And finally my prize arrived for being the randomly chosen winner of the Theology of Games Blogiversary Contest #2. The game I won is Sunrise City, by Clever Mojo Games! I’m very excited to get this game to the table!
Add in the fact that I also received Le Havre: The Inland Port and a set of Beer Glasses for my birthday and you’ll see that all the gifts I received had to do with either Boards or Barley. (Disclaimer: I also received Seasons 1 & 2 of MacGyver, but I already had those so I returned them and bought something for my kids with the money).
And now we’ve got GenCon week! So I’ll pretend it’s my birthday all week!
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So that’s the Boards and Barley that I enjoyed this past week. Any of you try a new game or new brew that left a lasting impression?
The Monday Brews: 7-29-13
What a splendid week we had last week. I ordered prototype cards for Conclave. I playtested new components for Scoville. And I enjoyed a few beverages.
Here’s a recap of what I drank and what I played last week:
The Barley:
Here are the tasty beverages I was able to enjoy last week:
Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss: This was an easy choice since we were camping. It’s a pretty easy-drinking wheat and honey beer from Wisconsin brewer Leinenkugel’s. We needed something in a can (Not Pabst!) that would be enjoyable around a campfire. I had requested Leinie’s Summer Shandy, but my wife choose Honey Weiss instead. No complaints there.
Ben Franklin’s Honey: This is my second homebrew and is rather enjoyable. Perhaps I have something for honey beers. This was enjoyed while working on game design. A perfect combination!
New Belgium Fat Tire: This fine beverage was enjoyed after our softball game where we won and became the first half champions of our league, thus locking in a spot in the championship game for our team.
Lake Louie Warped Speed Scotch Ale: This delicious scotch ale from nearby Lake Louie Brewery was also a post-game celebratory beverage. It is probably my favorite scotch ale and I hope to visit and tour the brewery someday.
Pearl St. Mills Pils: This was the last of the celebratory softball beverages and unfortunately also was my least favorite. It was a typical pils and nothing about it really stood out. Or it could have been because I had two before this one, it was late, and I was really tired. I guess I’ll have to give it another attempt.
Alberti Amber: This is my first homebrew and I only have a few of them left. I saved the very first bottle and it will remain in my basement/man cave forever! I was able to enjoy this during a game night last Friday. I think it’s pretty decent for a first go at homebrewing.
The Boards:
Here are the delightful games I was able to enjoy last week:
Conclave: This prototype of mine is still very rough. I solo tested it and learned that it needed some mathematical tweaks to make sure things are balanced for all players, and so that it can actually be played the way I want it to be played. I’ll likely have this with me at GenCon if anyone is interested.
Scoville: Four of my Level 1 friends were willing to test some new components for this game. The components are bonus abilities that let you do things you normally can’t do. But you can only do them once per game. If you use an ability, then you sacrifice the four points that it is worth. If you do not use them, then each is worth 4 points at the end of the game. This is like the train stations in Ticket to Ride: Europe.
Tsuro: This tile-laying game plays quickly and can be frustrating. We played twice, but the finish to the first was quite memorable. This picture shows the final tile placement, which resulted in all three remaining players being eliminated at the same time.
The grand elimination/victory moment for the Red, White, and Blue!
Gentlemen Thieves: This is a competitive game where you are trying to earn your own character the most loot from participating in different robberies throughout the game. On your turn you place a piece of evidence onto one of the five locations. If a location then has at least one of each of the five different types of evidence, then that location is robbed. The evidence tokens are flipped over to the loot side and divvied up between whichever team robbed the location. The team that robbed the location is the one with more evidence of their player colors in that spot. The game ends when the Brigadier makes a showing, and the player with the most loot wins. This is a fun light-ish game with a large mental aspect. I’ve now played twice (Once 2p and once 5p). I enjoy it, though it feels like my brain wants to explode each time!
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So what Barley or Boards were your favorites from this past week? Anything you’re hoping to enjoy this week?
Scoville Under Contract by TMG!
TMG Dragon loves peppers!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce that Tasty Minstrel Games has contracted my game Scoville for publication!
As you can imagine, I am very excited about this. Scoville will be my first published game and I’m grateful for TMG taking me into their fold.
So who is Tasty Minstrel Games? TMG is a board game publishing company run by Michael Mindes. On board with Michael is game designer/developer Seth Jaffee. You can check out Seth’s blog at sedjtroll.blogspot.com.
TMG has been putting out very quality games that contain beautiful artwork and are exceptionally enjoyable. Some of their recent awesomeness includes these games:
In Dungeon Roll the player’s goal is to collect the most experience points by defeating monsters, battling the dragon, and amassing treasure. Each player selects a Hero avatar, such as a Mercenary, Half-Goblin, or Enchantress, which provides them with unique powers. Then players take turns being the Adventurer, who boldly enters the dungeon seeking glory.
Belfort is a worker placement game with area majority scoring in each district as well as for each type of worker. Buildings give you influence in the districts as well as income, but taxes increase based on your score so the winning players will have to pay more than those behind! Manage your resources and gold well, choose your buildings wisely, and help build the city of Belfort!
The process is simple: Factories produce the goods (machinery, textiles, chemicals, food, and luxuries) that are coveted by the city folk. Airships – forbidden from landing in the cities but capable of carrying cargo over great distances – must be used to gather those goods and deliver them to depots along the rail network. Trains then haul the goods to the cities that want them, earning cash for the competitor who gets there first! Will you be the “King of Air and Steam?”
Also in the TMG queue and coming to stores soon is the new Stefan Feld game Rialto, the game about Florentine Medici-ness called Il Vecchio, as well as the expansion for Village (the 2012 Kennerspiel des Jahres) known as Village Inn.
But don’t forget about their other highly rated game, Eminent Domain, by Seth Jaffee. You can learn more on the BoardGameGeek page.
I will be keeping you all updated as Scoville progresses toward publication. Thanks for all of your interest. If there are any questions you have regarding Scoville, please post them as a comment below and I’ll be happy to reply!
Thanks! These are exciting times for me and for Tasty Minstrel Games! Make sure you visit them at GenCon at booth 459:
This booth will be filled with awesomeness!
Scoville Print and Play Version 2
Version 2 awesomeness now available!
I am pleased to announce that Version 2 of the Scoville Print and Play files are available for download at BoardGameGeek.com. Here is the link:
There are no major rules revisions to the game. The only clarification to the rules is that when selling peppers you must sell peppers from your own supply. Peppers in the fields are not for sale.
There are a few changes to the Print & Play files. The most notable change is that Gold has been dropped in favor of Silver. I’d like to thank Adam “A-Game” Buckingham for the suggestion. This was done for two reasons:
- Black + White blends to gray, not gold. So from a color perspective this is much less confusing.
- There is a much lower chance of confusing yellow with silver. These two colors are now more distinct.
The PnP files also have a few other revisions. These include:
- Artwork for the Bonus Point Tiles for secondary peppers (green/orange/purple) has been adjusted to decrease confusion.
- The Field has been slightly increased in size to better fit with the pepper tiles.
- The pepper tile artwork has been changed to help with color blindness and for clarity.
Here’s a peek at the revised pepper tiles:
By adding the pepper image to each tile it will help with color blindness. Each pepper is a different shape. And by changing the artwork to include the green border it should help to clarify where the player pawns will actually be walking. I showed this image to my wife and she said she thinks the game would be better with these rather than the cubes. This was actually a suggestion of Brett Myers (@brettspiel) during Protospiel-Milwaukee, so I must give credit where credit is due!
As usual, if you have any questions about the PnP files or the rules, or the game in general, please feel free to leave a comment here on Boards & Barley or on the BGG download page. Or feel free to email me. And I’d love to hear what you think about the game!
Scoville Print And Play Now Available!
Let the awesomeness be printed and played!
For those interested I have posted Version 0.1 of Print and Play files for Scoville, including the Rules, onto Board Game Geek. You can follow this link to obtain them:
BoardGameGeek: Unpublished Prototype: Scoville Rules & PnP
If you decide to print it out and play it I’d be happy to answer any questions. Just leave a comment below! I’d also be VERY interested in hearing your feedback from your plays of the game. So let’s stay in touch and make this game as best as it can be!
You can also hit me up on Twitter (@EdPMarriott) if you have any questions.
Thanks!
Boards and Barley 