Wellycon 2014

Wellycon 2014 included 6 tournaments and a game designers' section. I didn't play in any tournaments but I did play test two of Martin Wallace's prototypes.

My first game at Wellycon was a play test with Martin Wallace of his multi-player robot war game. The players are divided into two teams and build robots to fight for control of the World. Building robots is done using cards, while the fighting is done over multiple phases with plenty of dice throwing. My first robot turned out to be a killer (on its first hit) but with poor armour and I wrecked a lot of havoc before Martin built a counter robot. But by that time my partner had got into the act and we won. I enjoyed the game, though winning probably played a part in this opinion. In particular the sometimes secret robot development aspect seemed innovative, while the fighting aspect was less interesting to me. While it looked like the game could potentially drag on as it swings back and forth across the end game condition, the game we played didn't overstay its welcome (I prefer the brevity of Nexus Ops to Risk). In fact there was plenty of opportunity for further interesting technology development when it ended. On the whole I enjoyed the secret information and chaos of this game. The team aspect obviously suits an even number of players (we played with 4 which is probably the ideal number). While Martin said that he had different start positions to suit the 2 against 1 and the 3 against 2 games, I doubt that such a balancing mechanism would be perfect. I wanted to have another go on Sunday to see how difficult it is to develop counter technologies to someone else's opening technology, but was too busy doing my job.

The second game was a play test of the soon to be released Ships. There is a description of Ships on the Treefrog website, so I won't repeat that. Most of the actions incrementally improve one's position by getting you more resources, money, control on the board etc. But there are occasions when you can make major changes to the game state by moving the game forward to the next stage either on the ship track or by entering a new region on the map. Timing these changes to ones own advantage or anticipating that one of your opponents might trigger such a change seem to be the key to the game. Managing all the resources and timing the major events of the game are both things I enjoy in games (I rate 18XX games highly but rarely have time to play them). There is also an aspect of temporary inflation in the cost of actions to contend with. Popular actions gradually become more expensive until someone takes an action to reduce the costs of actions they have previously taken. I think Ships would appeal to people who like Automobile, Age of Steam and possibly medium length civilization games.

During Wellycon I taught Alhambra twice, once to a couple from Palmerston North and couple of local guys and also to a family: William, Daphne and Elle. They were looking for someone to teach them Alhambra and I obliged and stayed on for the game. Elle in particular caught on quickly but in the end William won.

William 107
Elle    100
Ian      92
Daphne   79

Later in the afternoon I got roped into a game of Hanabi. I got called away 3/4 of the way through the game, but the others carried on without me. I heard that we scored 22.

In the evening a group of us were looking for something quick to play and ended up with Felix: The Cat in the Sack. As is usual I was too greedy for this game and came last.

Paul   58
Eric   47
Jo     37
Angela 35
Ian    31

On Sunday I was busier with organising and running the front desk so mostly ended up playing shorter games in between. My new game for the day was The Witches: A Discworld Game by Martin Wallace. This turns out to be a slightly boring dice rolling "adventure game". Move to a location and roll dice to see if you can overcome the "encounter" and get some points. Alan Wong, who really got into character won the game.

Alan   29
Ian    21
Alicia 16
Stuart 16

Later in the day we played some of Eric shorter games. I suggested Liar's Dice, Eric taught it and I won. I tried bluffing this time and it sometimes paid off. The first time I played 6 nimmt! I thought is was stupidly random. Fast forward 8-9 years to the second time, and now the strategies are becoming apparent. I won the first game with zero points and in game two I came second with 7 points.

In the evening there were 6 of us looking for a game and I stupidly suggested Kings of Air and Steam. I barely remembered the rules. We started this too late to finish in time to pack up Wellycon. But we got a couple of turns finished.