Handycon - lots of new games!
Aug. 13th, 2018 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThis past weekend, we went to Handycon near Maidenhead and I played many more games than I did at Manorcon last month. Several of them were also new to me, and I enjoyed them all to varying degrees:
Noch Mal:
This is a 'roll and write' game similar in some ways to Qwixx, but more complicated. Each player has a wipe-clean grid with lots of little squares of different colours. There are two types of dice - ones with colours and ones with numbers. On each turn, the active player rolls all the dice and all the players can pick a combination of colour and number, and then cross off that number of connected squares of that number on their board. The game ends when one player has crossed off all of two colours on their board. There are various restrictions applied to which dice you can use, and how and where you can cross off squares on your board. It made for an interesting variation on Qwixx, with more complex strategy involved, but it's still a quick and easy time filler game, which is always useful at a con.
Race for the Galaxy:
This is quite a complex card game, whereby you collect cards, which can be used either as money or as whatever type of planet/facility/unit they represent. You have to balance the different abilities the cards give you, in order to maximise your collection of more cards, so you can purchase more to add to your array. There was a lot to get to grips with on a first play, but I managed to get the hang of it enough to develop a successful strategy in the second half and actually win.
Mosaix:
Another 'roll and write' game, this time where you arrange combinations of shapes on the dice and draw them onto your player board, in attempt to fill it with groupings of five of the same shape, in order to score the most points. Even more to think about and plan than in Noch Mal, but still fun. Not one I'd want to play several times in a row, though, as it took quite a lot of thinking and concentration.
Orleans:
The first new worker placement game I've played in a while, and I really enjoyed it. It has quite a few similarities to Village (recruiting workers that you pull out of a bag each turn, travelling around one particular part of the board, sending your workers to a different part of the board once they have outlived their usefulness) but without the troubling complexities I find really off-putting in Village (cubes and passage of time). It felt like there were way too many things to do and not enough time in the game to do all of them well, but that's the way of worker placement games. All of us were playing for the first time, so it was hard to tell what strategy was going to work, but I started getting the hang of it towards the end, and it was a lot of fun.
Hop!:
A ridiculous game involving small children trying to get to the top of the sky. The game mechanic is that the active player has to throw a rainbow hoop to land on the extended finger of another player, with various restrictions imposed by a card drawn at the start of the turn. Very few throws were successful and I think we annoyed a fair few other gameplayers on nearby tables by moving around and making a lot of noise. Still, it was suitably silly and quite enjoyable, though very short, as we all ran out of turn markers quickly by failing to make throws.
Photosynthesis:
This involves planting and growing trees on the board, in order to gain points by eventually cutting them down. It's very pretty and well designed, but a bit too hard for me in terms of working out an effective strategy. Having trees close together means they don't get 'light points' because the sun doesn't reach them, and my trees shaded each other more than they shaded the trees of the other players. It was interesting, but not a game I'd be looking to play again.
The overall trend of Handycon was that on several occasions we borrowed a game from the available library and all learned how to play it together, which is not something I usually do with games. I almost always learn new games from people who already know how to place, but it was fun to feel like everyone was in the same boat and figuring it out together.
Noch Mal:
This is a 'roll and write' game similar in some ways to Qwixx, but more complicated. Each player has a wipe-clean grid with lots of little squares of different colours. There are two types of dice - ones with colours and ones with numbers. On each turn, the active player rolls all the dice and all the players can pick a combination of colour and number, and then cross off that number of connected squares of that number on their board. The game ends when one player has crossed off all of two colours on their board. There are various restrictions applied to which dice you can use, and how and where you can cross off squares on your board. It made for an interesting variation on Qwixx, with more complex strategy involved, but it's still a quick and easy time filler game, which is always useful at a con.
Race for the Galaxy:
This is quite a complex card game, whereby you collect cards, which can be used either as money or as whatever type of planet/facility/unit they represent. You have to balance the different abilities the cards give you, in order to maximise your collection of more cards, so you can purchase more to add to your array. There was a lot to get to grips with on a first play, but I managed to get the hang of it enough to develop a successful strategy in the second half and actually win.
Mosaix:
Another 'roll and write' game, this time where you arrange combinations of shapes on the dice and draw them onto your player board, in attempt to fill it with groupings of five of the same shape, in order to score the most points. Even more to think about and plan than in Noch Mal, but still fun. Not one I'd want to play several times in a row, though, as it took quite a lot of thinking and concentration.
Orleans:
The first new worker placement game I've played in a while, and I really enjoyed it. It has quite a few similarities to Village (recruiting workers that you pull out of a bag each turn, travelling around one particular part of the board, sending your workers to a different part of the board once they have outlived their usefulness) but without the troubling complexities I find really off-putting in Village (cubes and passage of time). It felt like there were way too many things to do and not enough time in the game to do all of them well, but that's the way of worker placement games. All of us were playing for the first time, so it was hard to tell what strategy was going to work, but I started getting the hang of it towards the end, and it was a lot of fun.
Hop!:
A ridiculous game involving small children trying to get to the top of the sky. The game mechanic is that the active player has to throw a rainbow hoop to land on the extended finger of another player, with various restrictions imposed by a card drawn at the start of the turn. Very few throws were successful and I think we annoyed a fair few other gameplayers on nearby tables by moving around and making a lot of noise. Still, it was suitably silly and quite enjoyable, though very short, as we all ran out of turn markers quickly by failing to make throws.
Photosynthesis:
This involves planting and growing trees on the board, in order to gain points by eventually cutting them down. It's very pretty and well designed, but a bit too hard for me in terms of working out an effective strategy. Having trees close together means they don't get 'light points' because the sun doesn't reach them, and my trees shaded each other more than they shaded the trees of the other players. It was interesting, but not a game I'd be looking to play again.
The overall trend of Handycon was that on several occasions we borrowed a game from the available library and all learned how to play it together, which is not something I usually do with games. I almost always learn new games from people who already know how to place, but it was fun to feel like everyone was in the same boat and figuring it out together.
