Farming Dice

Here is another review of a game from the Board Game Geek solo P'n'P game design contest.
Farming Dice is a euro style trading and worker allocation game, made by Chad Mestdagh. Game can be downloaded here.
Player's goal is to make money by working on the farm. Farm consists of six land tiles that can take a role of field (where plants grow) or pasture (where cows roam).
Dice are used to determine what goods can be grown on each land and what goods (and for what price) are requested by the market. Player starts with five dice, and 3 to 4 are needed to perform an action like planting a field, purchasing young cows or sell goods. Cows are especially important, although they grow slowly, and need 3 full turns before they can be sold. Their benefit is that, once sold, they bring additional die to player’s pool. With 6 dice you can start to think about performing two actions in the turn, even if you really need 8 to do it. And if you are really good, you might eventually find yourself with 12 dice, which will allow you to perform mighty 3 (and sometimes even 4) actions in a turn!
So, player then chooses from available options taking into consideration not only financial aspect of his actions but also possibilities offered by many bonus abilities coming from planting specific plant or selling to specific market.Game lasts 15 turns, and level of victory is measured by the money earned after the last turn.
Inexperience player will take around one hour to finish the game. But no one will stop with one game of Farming Dice. This is one of these addictive games, which will always call for you to try and make a better result than the one you did last time.
As usual, I suggest printing 2 pages on 1 sheet of cardboard.
If you like this game and want to try more games from the same author, check out Sunburst City Transport game here.

Day at the races

Ladies, Gentleman and all of you with unidentified sex, today, here at the fringe of the empire, we present you a chariot race between two fractions, undead Romans and unpainted gray elves!
As this is introductory race, chariots will be racing just one circle around the forest. If you want to bet on your favorite chariot, look for the dwarf with the blue helmet!
And the chariots are off!
Coming out of the first turn we have elf team of Gray Shadows in the lead. It is surprise since these horses are known as slow to react, but seems that in this race drivers managed to overcome this weakness, announcing themselves as strong favorites for victory.
Another surprise at the second place. Red Scarab team moved ahead of their Prince who started at disappointing third place!
At the end, as expected we have Grey Lions team. Lions can not mach horses with speed, but they are famous brawler team, so we might expect them to get close and personal later in the race.
Coming at the open, Scarab horses are spooked, probably from the thought what will happen to them if they finish before their prince. Prince is grabbing the chance and attacking Shadows! I do not think they have enough speed to pass them.. But wait, Shadows are trying to bash into prince! They miss and fall to second place! Prince is leading!
At the back, Lions are trying to whip Scarabs, but they miss! Lions just lost their whip and stayed at last place! There is very little chance for them to move forward now!I don't think Shadows are going to give up that easy... And yes, they are attacking on the far turn and reclaiming the leading position!
Approaching the finish line, Prince is trying to pass Shadows but fails!
But look at that! Scarabs are trying to save the honor of Undead! They have just passed Prince and are attacking Shadows! Bold move, but there is no time! Shadows are first, Scarabs second, Prince third and Lions at the rear.
Not winning but finishing in front of Prince is not a good news for Scarabs. It is expected that they will be punished with at least century or two in some remote tomb, so I do not think we will see them racing again any time soon....

Image World Session 3

This is third part of my Microscope/Mythic game. Part 1 is here, and part 2 here.

TURN 2

Warrior as lance (MGE: Judge Business): Focus on how gods of the image world influence creation.

Warrior

1. (MGE: Carelessness Power): Period – Godless Times. For centuries after they retreated into Image World gods paid no attention to the created world. (D)
2. (MGE: Struggle Status Quo): Event in Godless times – War of races. Unaware that their gods left the creation, mortal races started holly war for supremacy, fighting in the names of their gods. (D)

Romantic (MGE: Passion Rumor): Event in Godless times – Renaissance of Gods, gods start hearing prayers of the mortal races. (L)

Me: Event in the Age of Knowledge – Imra’s Choice. Imra, who until that moment had no priesthood in creation, makes half-breeds her chosen people. First temple to Imra built in half-breed town of Gondwalk, and first priests blessed by goddess. (L)

Warrior

1. (MGE: Attract Possessions) Event in Godless times, after renaissance event – Gods requesting sacrifices. Gods agree to end godless times if mortals start making sacrifices to them. Each thing or being destroyed in creation gains its image (called soul) in Image World, and the god with the most souls is the most powerful. (L)
2. Scene:

QUESTION (MGE: Malice a Representative): Will any god request sacrifice of intelligent beings?

Description: God gives his high priest orders how to perform sacrificial rituals.

PICKING CHARACTERS

Required: one god and one priest.

Me: Agburakh, god of bravery and competition.

Romantic (UNE: Addicted bum, Abuse old religions) Harun, Orc war shaman, hungry for power.

Warrior (UNE: Forthright vicar, Explain ghosts, Secure family) Gotarvn, Orc war shaman, seeking ways of ancestors and honor for his tribe.

Me: “Hear me brave warriors! To please me as your god, make a temple with the great furnace in the middle, hot enough to melt iron! Let the greatest warrior melt a sword made by best blacksmith in the tribe! Then shaman should call for me, and I will answer. But if any of the three, if warrior shaman or the blacksmith are unworthy, my anger will be upon them!”

R (MGE: Pursue home) There is the stir among the orcs. Both shamans and their bodyguards were confused, since sacrifice of prisoners from other races was usual among orcs in these days. Harun draws his war axe and rushes towards the statue of the god (typical way for orc to show his disagreement).

W (MGE: Usurp allies) Seeing that Harun is opposing their god, Gotarvn draws his axe and stands in other shaman’s way. They are engaged in battle.

Me: god allows the duel to happen.

R (GME: Struggle pain) Harun is no mach to Gatorvn in combat. He soon finds himself wounded on the ground.

W (GME: Vengeance the public) Harun’s bodyguards rush to the help of their shaman. Gotarvn and his followers found themselves cornered.

Me: “Enough bloodshed for today brave warriors! This will be start of new tradition among orcs. When a dispute arises between warriors of the same status, trial of combat will be held in my temple, and I will give strength of arms to those who are right.

Mark this event as a holiday from now on, and celebrate it with ritual fights in my temple.

And know that this dispute is solved by Gatorvn victory over Harun: no creature should ever be sacrificed in my name, or in the name of any other god! All souls belonging to creatures should be free when they pass to the world of images!

But I will take in my service the bravest of orcs once their souls leave their bodies. That should be your reward for honoring me in creation!”

ANSWER: No god will ever accept sacrifice of a living being.

LEGACY PHASE

I will choose Souls in the Image World as legacy.

Dictated scene:

QUESTION: Do souls of Half-breeds go to image world?

DESCRITION: When Tulpar, second son of Laila and Vuluche, died in Caves of Mirrors, Vuluche started ceremony of sacrifices to his soul. But the ceremony was stopped by the voice of goddess Olhuna herself.

Goddess explained Vuluche that souls of half-breeds do not come to Image World, since half-breeds are no part of it. Are half-breeds soulless or are their souls meant to go to some other place no one of the gods knows, except maybe Imra, but she will tell no one.

ANSWER: Only Imra may know what happens to the souls of half-breeds, but they do not come to the Image World. (D)

Final part of the game can be found here.

LOTR Adventure Deck Game

Here is another interesting entry to the Board Game Geek solitaire P'nP competition. Game is called LOTR Adventure Deck, and can be downloaded for free here so go do it.
Basically LOTRADG is a push your luck game. You have 25 turns to go through complete deck and reach Mordor in order to destroy the ring. The faster you move, the more risk you take, but if you are too slow you may found yourself arriving to late... In your journey you will encounter friends as well as the enemies, all well known from Tolkien books.
I like to call games like this a peanuts game. For just like with peanuts, you can't have enough of it. Win or lose (and lose you will) your next thought will always be "I think I have time for another one" :)
Each game is played in 5 to 15 minutes, and it is a great pastime if you are waiting for something.
And no matter how good you are, there is no guarantee that you will win every game. All you can do is to measure your record, be it the number of straight wins, most wins in ten games or the least number of turns you used to reach Mordor. Whatever you choose, and no mater how good is the record, you will always try to beat it, so this is not the game that will quickly leave your playing desk.
As it is practice with BGB games, game comes also in printer friendly mode, but as usual, I recommend printing color version in small cards format with 2 pages on 1 sheet of card-stock, in which case you will need just 3 sheets of card-stock for 54 cards and one sheet of regular paper for playing mat to complete the game.
Game is also available as Artscow deck.

Back form the mountains

During last two weeks, I took my 8 months old son to his first vacation ever, into the mountains. Below, you can see us doing what every good RPG hero should: exploring some caves :)
Anyway, I took my lap top with me, and I was able to do some writing in the evenings.
I came back with almost finished rulebook for Trader, my second entry for Board Game Geek solo competition. I also have short review of the another good game from the same stable.
At the end, there is a third session of the Image World history.
All coming very soon to this blog, so stay tuned...

House arrest

I started playing games created for the Board Game Geek Solitaire Print and Play Contest.
After several games that failed to scratch my need for solo gaming, I tried Inspector Moss II: House arrest by Rebekah B. Game is free, so go download it.
House arrest is a really fun dice allocation game.
Just like in every good crime novel, player takes a role of police inspector, who found himself accidentally at the scene of a murder. His goal is to find and arrest the murderer before the time runs up, using combination of clues and police methods.
All actions are performed by allocating specific number of dices. 8 dices are used in the game, and they can be rerolled up to three times in one turn.Additional strength of this game is great graphic. There is printer friendly version included, but I would recommend using full color, and printing 2 pages of tiles on one sheet of card-stock, just like I did on these photos.
In total, House Arrest is a fun game, one that I will be playing a lot once the competition is over.

The Image World, Session 2

Session 1 can be found here.

Session 1 can be found here.

Warrior (MGE: Persecute Success): Event in Creation, after the event where gods created image world. As world started to shape, Imra, goddess of change began to disagree with the image. She started to shape the world differently, according to her own vision, and everything she touched turned even more beautiful than the picture in the Image world. But the other gods were jealous at her successes, so they tricked and imprisoned her into the same Image world she hated, where nothing is real, time stands still and changes are impossible (D)


Romantic (MGE: Celebrate information): Event in the Age of Enlightenment, after Imagist rise to power. Heraha, high priestess of Olhuna, goddess of nature, child birth and health, while praying on the twentieth day of spring, received vision of the garden in the Image World, where all plants had their healing properties written in front of them. Grateful for the new knowledge, Heraha order that great festival should be celebrated each year on the twentieth day of spring, which will from this moment on be known as the Day of the healing herbs.


Me:

1. Event in Creation - Imra escapes from the Image World (D).
2. Scene:

QUESTION: Have Image World survived Imra’s escape?

Setting the scene: Other Gods discuss Imra’s escape.

PICKING CHARACTERS

Banned: Imra.

Romantic (UNE: Optimistic steward, shepherd gluttony, compose riddles) Dubus, god of wine and entertainment.

Warrior (UNE: Obnoxious astrologer, construct intelligence, drive expertise) Guhernia, goddess of science and logic.

Me: Skallut, bisexual god of justice and right measure.

R (MGE: Return Attention) “The name that has been forgotten is back on every lip! End of all things is coming! Let’s drink and be merry!”

W (MGE: Adjourn Riches) “This is not a laughing matter, you fool! The knowledge Imra took from us is more precious than you can ever imagine!”

Me: “We have imprisoned Imra unjustly. So she is entitled for some compensation. Our time to pay had to come sooner or later. It came now.”

R (MGE: Proceedings Opposition) “I’ll sit with Imra by the glass of wine; let laughter wash all past away! And let all that now belongs to her be shared with all of us again! Let’s drink and be merry!”

W (MGE: Refuse a Representative) “You are a fool. You can not negotiate with yourself, and you want to negotiate with Imra! Even if she accepts your proposal, she will change her mind the minute we turn our back on her. That is her nature. We have to find some other way to deal with this problem.”

Me: “Maybe we can offer her something else in exchange? But first, are we positive she has not destroyed the knowledge we seek? It could be lost during her escape, or destroyed after it, having in mind Imra’s hatred for it?”

R (Arrive Nature) “Changer will change but not destroy! Ever-changing is her mind, so now she loves what she once hated! Let’s drink and be merry!”

ANSWER: Imra stole Image World from other Gods, but fell in love with it and could not destroy it.


LEGACY PHASE

R – Chose legacy (MGE: Dominate investment) Imra’s ownership over the Image World

R makes dictated scene:

Question (MGE: Inquire Disruption) How did Imra’s ownership of the Image World ended?

Description (MGE: Truce Investment)

The time has come, and Imra met with other Gods to offer them her proposition.

“Let’s all of us retire to the Image World, and leave the creation to the mortal races. This way, Image world will again belong to all of us” said she.

“The proposition is just” announced Skallut.

Other goods looked at each other. Finally, Guhernia spoke for all of them:

“If this is the way it must be, we accept. We will all move into the Image World, and make it our home. From now on, created world will stay in the hands of mortal races.”

ANSWER: All gods left creation and settled inside the Image World. (L)

Part 3 can be found here.