F@#$ Robo Rally

Robo Rally

Plot:  you are a bored super computer idling the nights away at a automated factory.  for your own amusement you stage races against other super computers using the factory's robots.  The theme has decent implementation.  The boards are chaotic and dangerous like a factory...

Game Play:  There are 5 moves per turn, which you must plan out ahead of time.  You get 9 cards to do this with.  The cards moves are things like turn right, move forward 3 or back up.  Your robot has to negotiate obstacles to get to race goals, so planning your move correctly is the game.

Robots shoot at each other, and if you get damaged, you receive less cards to plan your move.  Lose too many cards, and your 5th move gets locked.

Game end conditions can change from game to game, but generally its something like whoever tags three goal markers first.

Review:  I do not like this game.  It was released in 1994, so its 20 years old.  20 years ago, it might have been okay, back when board game choices consisted of Risk, Advanced Civilization and Car Wars; it has not aged well.

The game has way too much luck involved for the time investment it takes to play.   BGG lists playing time as 120 minutes, and I find that incredibly optimistic for anything larger than a small play surface.

The skill of planning your turn isn't very hard to master, so really the game is who draws the best cards.  Now there are quite a few games that I like that can be described in this manner.  Most of them play in 45 minutes or less.

F@#$ Planet Money

Onto a Podcast review!

The skip to the end sentence:  I love this podcast, listen to it if you can.

I first found Planet Money while listening to This American Life.  The Planet Money staff did a stripped down explanation of the 2008 mortgage crisis, and it was clever, humorous and informative.  So I subscribed to the Pod Cast.

Stripped down is their modus operandi.  The PM staff has a knack of explaining complex issues into easy to follow language. 

This is not to say they come up with definitive conclusions, like ever.  Economics revolves around competing opinions and values.  Economics is inherently messy.  I contrast that with Freakonomics.  Freakonomics, while also asking interesting questions, is run by rock star economist Steven Levitt.  And while Levitt has novel/intriguing stories, Levitt rarely admits possibility of error.

PM is run by laymen reporters.  Reporters who routinely look for the divergent opinions. 

PM also has an endearing DIY attititude.  A couple years ago, they wanted to do a story on toxic assets.  Whats the best way to handle that?  Well to buy one of course.

So they did, named it Toxie and did a series of stories on what made Toxie toxic.  From the purchasing of it, the tracking down and attempted interviews with the distressed mortgage holders within it, and the byzantine way the money was paid out.  Long story short for toxie, besides people getting behind on their mortgages, there were about 90 levels of payment priority.  Toxie was in the bottom third, so as payments dried up, Toxie stopped paying out earlier.

From the remaining Toxie money, they bought some gold.  And did a series of stories on the crazy gold inflation of the past couple years.  Like how did gold become a currency anyways?

PM has also explored manufacturing by forming a company to make T-Shirts.  They also explored off shore corporations by forming one.  Located in Belize, they named it UnBelizable.

Anyways, the Podcast that inspired this post was #430, were they looked at V!agra spam.  The most surprising thing, is that these black market pharmacies actually sent the correct medications.  They did recommend NOT ordering from this, leaving aside the illegal to buy without a prescription issue.  You surrender information to sketchy companies, including your phone number.  And they relayed a testimonial from a person who quit ordering from these pharmacies and had to stop answering their phone due to the volume of harrasing sales calls.

F@#$ Bang!

Bang!

Plot:  Spaghetti Western.  Kill the Sheriff and the Deputies if you are the Outlaws, kill the Outlaws if you are the law, kill everyone if you are the Renegade.  The theme is fun, the cards reference Western movie cliches, and everything is written in Italian with English subtitles.

Gameplay: 

Only the sheriff is known.  Every other role you have to figure out via actions.  The mix is set depending on how many players, I played 7 player, and the role distribution is 1 sheriff, 2 deputies, 3 outlaws, and 1 renegade.





Besides your role, you also have a character.  The character provides some kind of exception, my first character allowed me to pick cards from the discard.  This was amazingly powerful.  My second character allowed me to draw immediately if I ran out of cards.  This was pretty meh.



A turn consists of drawing 2 cards, playing whatever you can, then discarding down to your current health.

Most cards are self explanatory.  Draw new cards.  Force someone to discard.  Steal a card from someone.
 
Shooting someone requires some explanation.

First, you need a Bang! card.  Without specific exception cards (gear or character) you can only play one Bang! card a turn.

Second, target needs to be in range.  Default range is 1, so that means your left and right hand neighbors only.  There are gear cards that increase your range.

After revealing a Bang! card, target gets a chance to reveal a Missed! card.  If no Missed! card is revealed, you do 1 damage, and get to raise your hands in the air as if there are no repercussions.

Review:  This game plays 7+ well, which is a pretty rare feat.  Also, the table I played at was pretty fun.  People were very likely to just start shooting, which speeds up the game.  With the wrong table this game may really really suck.  There's not much to the strategy except to make sure you draw good cards, so long analysis of who may be who can make a beer and pretzels game drag.  But as long as no one takes it very seriously, its nicely paced with just a hint of strategy and tactics.

Tips:  The only thing I have figured out really, is that if you are a deputy, it's worth your while to start shooting immediately.  In 7 player, you have a blind 80% chance of hitting someone opposing you.  Outlaws should be more cautious but the law should spray the lead.

F@#$ Giving Hints

a theoretical.

You are teaching or are way more experienced at a game than the majority of your opponents.  How much, if any, help do you give?

This is practical.  Next Saturday I will be attending game night with my NEW FRIENDS.  I will most likely be teaching at least 2 games and/or playing Alhambra with 5 other people who have played once.

So if I was there to win, I wouldn't give any hints.  But I'm not there solely to win.  Winning against players who are struggling to make moves isn't very fulfilling.

Ted Nugent, once said of hunting, that it is the experience.  It's not the killing, if he wanted to kill animals he'd buy a chicken farm.  It's the practice, the patience and the stalk all leading to a seminal moment.  Now I find Ted Nugent an ass, but he stumbled around a pretty good philosophy here.

The experience is more important than the outcome.

or

The journey is it's own reward.


So I like to give hints.  I don't want to just win, I want peoples best game.

But how many hints and how often?

It's quite the difficult question.  Too few and you are back to shooting animals at the zoo, too many and your are playing everyone's turn.

What's the happy median?

I "think" next week I will outline the broad strategies and what things you have to manage, a couple of tactical tips, and let the table figure out the rest.



I am specifically thinking of Notre Dame as I write this.  So my beginners guide to Notre Dame.

There's 4 ways to score points in ND.  Go to the church, go to the incremented VP location, hiring towns folk, and getting messages via carriage house.  To have a chance, you have to get significant points from two sources.

There are 3 things you have to manage, in order of importance.

The rat-track:  get a plague value of over 9 and you lose a previous play off the board AND 5 points.   I have never seen a game won by a player getting the plague.

Money:  Money is used to hire townies, and to go to the cathedral.  The more you spend on a cathedral move, the more points you score.  Hiring townies is really important, I have never seen a game won by a player who ran out of money during the buy townie phase.  Money for the big church is less important, but it makes the church moves more efficient.

Influence counters:  If you run out of dudes in your active supply, you move them around the board instead.  I have seen many games won by people who had to relocate influence counters instead of playing a new one.

Tactical moves:

Avoid the park and hotel as much as possible.  It is unlikely that you will avoid both the entire game, but both these moves have the worst returns.  A hotel is more versatile with one play, and the park is better long term, but too many plays there means a long game.

F@#$ The Hobbit

movie review time again!

The Hobbit, the Tolkein foundation of almost everything nerdy. 

Bottom Line:  This movie was meh.  It wasn't awful, but it wasn't good either.  There were a few scenes I liked a lot, a couple scenes I despised, and a lot of scenes that could have been better.

Big Picture Problems:

#1:  the conception.  There simply is not enough finished material to make a good Hobbit trilogy.  There's the original book, which was for kids, and unfinished works rewriting this for an adult audience.  I haven't read these unfinished works, but usually things are left unfinished for a reason.  So the action gets played out longer, the scenes exaggerated further.  To me the movie feels like an unfunny, overlong sketch at the end of SNL that only got air time because they had nothing better.

#2:  the tone.  Is this a mad cap adventure with bumbling, squabbling dwarves or a grim quest to retake these Dwarves homeland?  It usually plays to the latter, but there are attempts at comic relief.  When its the dwarves amongst themselves it works, but when it's a newly eviscerated Goblin King it doesn't. 

#3:  Deus Ex Gandalfina.  Apparently Gandalf is the only one capable of solving a problem.  Which would work fine with the bumbling version, but in the grim quest version it makes Thorin's company impotent.

Annoyances:

in order of importance

all the battle scenes are mottled and confusing.  Since the last 45 minutes is one long running battle this is kind of a deal with me.  It gave me a headache.

 Rock em Sock em Stone Giants.  Ok this should be so minor that it shouldn't make it to a review.  But this is where the movie went off the rails for me.  They looked so absurd, and they added nothing to the story.  I hated, hated, hated the Stone Giants.

Radagast the Poo Stain.  Another something minor.  He wasn't in the film much, but every scene he appeared in was agony for me. 

Things I liked:

the Elijah Woods intro, the first Bag End dinner and Riddles were all well done.  Riddles especially.