The Gamer Hotsheet

This article starts with an admission... I never got close enough to this game to actually play it.  This game was so darned popular at Gen Con Indy 2008 that I simply couldn't find a time when a seat was available to sit down and get a demo.  The tables were full any time Fantasy Flight Games had someone there who could run a demo.  That tells me they must be on to a winner with this title, because I managed a demo with some of the other "hot" titles this year, such as "Humans!!" from Twilight Creations.  (That took several attempts as well, as it was also quite popular.)

This article therefore is NOT a review.  I stood nearby, slightly jealous, watching others play the game for as long as my feet held out (plantar fasciitis is a tough adversary).  While I think I have a reasonably good feel for how it plays, I'm not going to try to convey that here except to say that all the elements you think of as integral to the current Battlestar Galactica series appear to be present in the prototype being demonstrated at Gen Con.

It is my understanding (i.e., subject to correction) that the game incorporates the major characters of the series.  It incorporates the fact that some of those characters could be Cylon agents working among the humans.  It encourages players to put the main characters in harm's way (e.g., loading Starbuck onto a Viper makes it more effective in combat).  It also puts the Galactica into specific situations that it has to fight its way out of, just as it would in the series.

It LOOKS like it will be a great game.  I wish I could say it "IS" a great game, but the darned thing was just too popular for me to get the chance to find out.  I talked with some of the people who played the demo, and periodically walked by to gauge their reactions.  People seemed to be having a genuinely good time with it and getting into it.  Had it been available for purchase, I might have bought it sight-unseen based solely on the popularity and reactions I saw.  Oh well... Maybe I'll get to play it next year...

While at Gen Con, I had the opportunity to sit down for a 30-45 minute demo of the combat and movement mechanics of Fantasy Flight Games' "Tannhauser: Operation Novgorod" expansion to its popular "Tannhauser" title.

The setting of Tannhauser is that World War I never ended.  To quote FFG's web site: "Tannhäuser is a tactical board game of paranormal investigations and Great War combat, pitting the forces of the Reich and the Army of the Union together in a struggle for control of the Obscura Cardinal Cornerstones, magical artifacts of immense power."  The "Operation Novgorod" expansion is a not-yet-released addition to the game.

Tannhauser takes place on a game board, using pre-painted miniatures, cardboard sheets representing the characters involved, cardboard counters (used to mark the location of debris, ammo, weapons, and the like), and 10-sided dice.  The image below depicts the basic components of the game and some artwork from the Operation Novgorod expansion:



Below is a typical character sheet.  In the bottom right corner, you can see the cardboard counters used to identify the character's special abilities, weapons, and ammunition he or she might be carrying. 

Just above that is a table of numeric values, to the right of which is another cardboard counter with a star on it.  This counter is used to mark damage to the character, by turning it counter-clockwise so that the star points to the next row down in the table.  Some characters have abilities that improve with damage, while most deteriorate.  Once a character has taken more damage than can be scored on the table, that character is considered dead and removed from play.



Tannhauser may look like a board game, but in play it's somewhere between a boardgame and a traditional miniatures game. This would make it a good "bridge" game for introducing less "hardcore" gamers to a more complex or traditional miniatures game.

The game board uses circles to indicate positions in the building/terrain where a character might move.  The circles of a matching color are considered to be in weapons range and within a character's line of sight.  Some circles have multiple colors, corresponding to the fact that they can be seen from different areas.  In the example image below, the two characters share matching colored circles and thus are considered in line of fire and potentially within weapons range. (Melee weapons require adjacent circles. Other weapons require a specific number of circles between the two characters for them to be effective.)



The example below illustrates how various circles may be visible from multiple areas.



When a character dies in Tannhauser, that character's weapons and ammo are dropped on the map in the circle where the character fell.  Other characters may pick up these weapons and ammunition and use them.

The combat model seems reasonably realistic, based on my 30-45 minute introduction to it.  If you open up with a machine gun at relatively close range on someone, there's a very good chance that someone is going to die.  Toss an explosive anywhere near them, they'll take damage. There are modifiers that allow for more damage or more hits.

During my demo with Tannhauser, 5 characters on each side were pitted against each other in an indoor setting.  It was fairly clear that when the number of characters on one side of the battle starts to outnumber those on the other side, the characters on the "losing" side will very likely continue to lose unless some very lucky rolls of the dice occur.  My understanding of the full "non-demo" version of the game is that you can call in replacements or reinforcements for the "non-critical" characters, which would help to even the odds a little.  Otherwise, a slight advantage seems to very quickly become a victory.

I found Tannhauser very simple to learn, easy to play, and (most importantly) fun.  My main concern for Tannhauser, based strictly on a 30-45 minute demonstration and NOT a full game or multiple games, is that there might be an issue of replayability here.  The game board certainly won't change between sessions.  The main characters, unless I missed something, don't change between sessions.  The only things I see changing between multiple sessions of the game are the dice rolls and the potential for critical items of equipment to change hands due to a character dying.  I'm not sure that's enough variation to keep the game interesting.  But again, I want to point out that mine is not a picture of the complete game, and there may indeed be a lot more to it than I'm aware of.  (Those of you who own and play this game regularly, please comment on this article about YOUR experience with it, because I don't want to sell this game short.)

On the whole, I thought it was an enjoyable game, reasonably quick to pick up (less than 5 minutes), allowing for some decent strategic and tactical thinking, and likely to be an excellent game to "bridge" traditional players into more-serious adult games.

This part of our virtual walkthrough of the Gen Con Indy 2008 Exhibit Hall starts at Aisle 2600 and works back to approximately Aisle 1900...

This article will take you on a little virtual walk through the Gen Con Indy 2008 Exhibit Hall, starting at Aisle 100 and ending around Aisle 1000...

Tangent Games demonstrated its "Bankruptcy" game for me today. It's extremely easy to learn, taking on a few minutes. Once you learn the basics, you're ready to play with 1-5 additional people.

In Bankruptcy, the object is to play all the cards in your hand, which makes you bankrupt. There are four types of cards. The first type represents a number of shares of stock. When you draw one of these cards, you in essence own that much stock. Bear Market cards have a numeric value on them, allowing you to discard up to that number of shares of stock. Bull Market cards also contain a numeric value and allow you to specify the number of additional cards one of your opponents must pick up. The final card type represents an event in the financial markets that you can use to your advantage or to punish an opponent.

The game takes seconds to set up and about 5-10 minutes to play through.

I enjoyed it enough in a quick demo to pick up a copy.

Today, I spoke with representatives of Red Juggernaut about their title "Battue: Storm of the Horse Lords" (hereinafter "Battue"). They position this title as a "bridge game" between traditional board games like Monopoly and more-advanced wargames. As such, it has elements of both.

Battue is played on a board with randomized tiles representing a part of a city. Each player takes on the role of a Horse Lord trying to defeat as much of the city as possible and accumulate the most loot. The player with the most loot and in control of the largest amount of the city is crowned king and wins the game.

The folks at Red Juggernaut describe it this way:

Rooted in the World of Terris, a brutal, dark fantasy setting envisioned by authors Robin Laws and Scott Hungerford, Battue: Storm of the Horse Lords is a strategy board game in which players take control of a horde of Horse Lords bent on looting Tarsos, the City of Brass Pillars. This strategy game is easy-to-learn, fast-playing, fun, and keeps players involved in the game even when it

Today at Gen Con Indy 2008 I had the opportunity to learn about the Entropia Universe. To quote their marketing literature:

The Entropia Universe is more than a game. The Entropia Universe is for real. Real people, real activities, and a Real Cash Economy in a massive online universe.

Join people from around the globe who use the Entropia Universe currency, the PED, to develop their characters everyday on the untamed planet of Calypso. The unique and secure Real Cash Economy allows you to transfer your accumulated PED back into real world funds.

That's the gist of the game. You play it like any other MMO. You wander around, killing monsters, and picking up loot. The loot you pick up can be sold to NPCs and other players for the in-game PED currency. You can also buy PED with real-world money if you want some.

Given that in-game money can be exchanged for something you can spend in the real world, you might expect the game to come with a hefty price tag and monthly fee. If that's what you thought, you'd be wrong. The game can be downloaded and played without ever paying a cent of real-world money for it. The manufacturers make their money in a variety of creative ways. They sell advertising in the in-game cities. They sell virtual real estate. Recently, they received $400,000 to establish in-game banks that operate the same as banks in the real world, allowing players to deposit and borrow money.

I played a few minutes of the game this afternoon at Gen Con. The user interface is pretty straightforward, much like the interface in any of the other MMOs out there. The W,A,S, and D keys move the character around. The mouse allows the player to turn left and right. Left-clicking the mouse attacks an enemy.

The graphics are probably a notch or two below those you'd find in more-recent MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online. However, they aren't "dated" or mediocre. Given that I was in a loud convention hall, I didn't get a feel for the sound quality, though I would imagine that they are on par with the visuals.

As with most MMOs, there is a crafting system in Entropia Universe. Players loot item blueprints from the enemies they kill. They also loot raw materials and components. The raw material and components can be combined at crafting stations, using the blueprints, into items that can be used or sold to other players.

That's as much as I can tell you about The Entropia Universe at the moment. I plan to load it up and spend a little time with it once I get back home to my desktop PC. The Asus Eee PC I have with me doesn't have quite enough horsepower to run it.

Update 08/17/2008:  After returning home from Gen Con today, I decided to fire up Entropia Universe and see what I thought of it.  Unfortunately, they don't support Windows Vista yet.  I haven't been able to get the game installed and running on my main PC because of this. I'll try on a Windows XP Pro laptop later and see how it goes.