Game Profiles: Cooperative Games, and "Pandemic" profile

Not Your Parents’ Board Games
By David Means

Cooperative Games
A relatively new category is that of “cooperative” games. Instead of playing against each other, the players are working together to defeat the game itself, and everyone wins or loses as a team.

Some examples are Pandemic (profiled below), Space Alert, Castle Panic, and The Grizzled.

Pandemic
In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world. The players are a team of medical specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of the four plagues before they get out of hand.

Taking a unique role within the team, each player must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases. To successfully cure all four diseases requires that all five team members work together; unfortunately only four are allowed in the game, so every move must be carefully planned out.

The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station.

A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are “Epidemic!” cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases’ activity.

A second, separate deck of cards controls the “normal” spread of the infections. But the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery, or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND SERIES: In January 2016, KaCSFFS member (Club Director since April 2017) and notable board game collector David Means gave a presentation to the club about his collection. It was so interesting, I asked for permission to reprint it as a series of posts on this blog. He graciously agreed, and supplied me with his script. I have divided it into several posts and added the illustrations, hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. as seemed appropriate. --Jan S. Gephardt, Communications Officer 

IMAGES: Many thanks to all of the following: 
For SPACE ALERT: Board Game Geek for the cover art, and Czech Games for the photo of the game's components. 
For CASTLE PANIC: Amazon for the box cover photo, and Backyard Game Design's "#GDE Reviews" review of the game, for the photo of the pieces in play. 
For THE GRIZZLED: Board Game Brawl's YouTube review of the game, for the cover box photo, and Board Game Geek for the photo of the components laid out at the 2015 Festival international des jeux Cannes. 
For PANDEMIC: BoardGameGeek for the photo of the starter-box cover, and Board Game Quest's review of the game, for the photo of the game in play.

Game Profiles of Small World and Mystery of the Abbey

Not Your Parents’ Board Games

By David Means

Small World

Small World is an area-control game. Players vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate them all. SmallWorld is inhabited by a zany cast of characters such as dwarves, wizards, amazons, giants, orcs, and even humans, who use their troops to occupy territory and conquer adjacent lands in order to push the other races off the face of the earth.

The base game has 14 different fantasy races and 20 unique special powers, which are randomly paired each game. Players use their special abilities to expand their empires -- often at the expense of weaker neighbors. Yet they must also know when to push their own over-extended civilization into decline and ride a new one to victory.

Each race has a set number of population markers which players use to conquer adjacent territories. Once those markers are used up, you give up on your race, letting it go “into decline.” At the end of your turn, you score one point (coin) for each territory your races occupy.

Small World is one of the few games that has a double-sided board; the number of players determines which side of the board is used. There are also two variants and nine expansions, each of which adds three to five new races and an equal number of new powers.

You might like this tutorial:

Mystery of the Abbey 

Mystery of the Abbey is a whodunit game with a twist. If you are a fan of the Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters, the PBS series, or the book and/or movie The Name of the Rose, you would probably enjoy Mystery of the Abbey.

The premise is that someone has pushed poor Brother Adelmo off the roof of the abbey onto the rocks far below. You are one of several monks tasked by the Abbott with finding out who the murderer is. 

The suspects are twenty-four monks of three different orders (Templar, Franciscan, Benedictine), and are either fat or thin, tall or short, bearded or clean-shaven, and hooded or not. 

By examining the suspect cards in the other players’ hands you need to deduce who the culprit is by process of elimination (the actual suspect card is placed under the board before play, like Clue). The game is a combination of the mechanics of Clue and Who Am I?

The game's publisher, Days of Wonder, has provided a short video overview:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND SERIES: In January 2016, KaCSFFS member and notable board game collector David Means gave a presentation to the club about his collection. It was so interesting, I asked for permission to reprint it as a series of posts on this blog. He graciously agreed, and supplied me with his script. I have divided it into several posts and added the illustrations, hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. as seemed appropriate. --Jan S. Gephardt 

IMAGES: Many thanks to Board Game Geek for the photo of the Small World game cover and the photo of game pieces, to Amazon for the photo of the Small World game board with some of the pieces, and to Clever Move Quick Play for the three-minute tutorial. Many thanks to Board Game Family for the photo of the Mystery of the Abbey cover, to Thirsty Meeples for the photo of the board and some of the pieces, and to Days of Wonder for the short introduction to the game.

Games and Valentine Food for February's Meeting!

What: Monthly KaCSFFS Meeting
When: Saturday, February 18, 2017
6:00-Start setting up
7:00-Brief business meeting (if needed), then play tabletop games and socialize
9:30-End of meeting
Where: The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania Ave., Kansas City, MO 64111
Food Theme: Valentine-Style foods

Games, games, games
Bring your favorite tabletop games to share! SF or fantasy themes and family-friendly preferred, but if you think we'll enjoy it, bring it in! The Writers Place has tables on three different levels for a variety of playing places.

We won't have as many games as the MidAmericon II Gaming Department had, but there are a lot of tabletop games to enjoy. Bring your favorites to share Saturday!

Valentine-style foods
February has been our traditional "chocolate month," but not everyone likes (or can eat) chocolate, so think outside the box. This event also is not couples-only, so we welcome any heart-warming expression of edible love for your fellow KaXFEN!

Please bring a variety of food to share your KaXFEN love! This was our table in February 2012.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Jan S. Gephardt, who took both images. If you wish to use them, please include an attribution and a link back to this page.

Not Your Parents' Board Games: Power Grid and Dixit

Board Game Profiles continue! 

In January 2016, KaCSFFS member and notable board game collector David Means gave a presentation to the club about his collection. It was so interesting, I asked for permission to reprint it as a series of posts on this blog. He graciously agreed, and supplied me with his script. I have added the illustrations, hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. as seemed appropriate. –Jan S. Gephardt 

Power Grid

If you prefer auctions, you might enjoy Power Grid. Each turn, players bid for different types of power plants to power cities, then they must buy the fuel for their plants. 

Players must be careful in choosing their energy source—coal, oil, trash, nuclear, or wind—because if other players are using the same fuel, scarcity will drive up the price.

At the end of each turn players are paid based on the number of homes each one powers. If a player spends all their cash on fuel, they won’t have enough money in the next turn to buy a more efficient power plant. 

Players must carefully balance their income and expenses, and try to plan a few turns ahead to keep themselves as efficient as possible.

Dixit

Players who enjoy word usage should try Dixit, which has some mechanics similar to Balderdash and Apples to Apples. 

One player is the storyteller for the turn, and looks at the images on the six cards in her hand. From one of these, she gives a cryptic clue (word, phrase, sound, etc.) and says it out loud (without showing the card to the other players). 

The other players select the card in their hand which best matches the clue and give the selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to the others. 

Some Dixit cards.

The storyteller shuffles her card with all the received cards. All pictures are turned face up and every player has to bet upon which picture was the storyteller’s.

If nobody or everybody finds the correct card, the storyteller scores 0, and each of the other players scores 2. 

Otherwise, the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score 3. 

Players score 1 point for every vote for their own card. The game ends when the deck is empty or if a player scores 30 points. In either case, the player with the most points wins the game.

The first two posts in this series covered more general topics that cover many types of games. They were published on June 4, 2016, and June 18, 2016, and were well-received. The third, published on December 29, 2016, initiated a series of Game Profiles with a more in-depth view of Catan/The Settlers of Catan. The fourth, on Carcassone and Ticket to Ride, went live January 23, 2017. We hope you will continue to enjoy this series!

IMAGES: 

Many thanks to Board Game Geek for the Power Grid box cover design, and to Dad's Gaming Addiction for the photo of the board and playing pieces. 

Many thanks to Board Game Rules for the photo of the Dixit box, to Pinterest for the illustration of some of the Dixit cards, and to the review post on Shut Up & Sit Down for the photo of the game board and playing pieces.