Waggle You Buggers, Waggle!

Ok, so the Waggle Dance is getting rave reviews from all over the place, really impressed with PR machine chaps, well done!!

However, it still needs some funding to get this game out into the world.

If you've never backed a kickstarter before then here's a helping hand;

1. go to the page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1811420414/wag... 

2. play the video... read all about the game... watch the 'final thoughts' video for an independent assessment - yes, he got sent a copy of the game but he didn't have to review it, and he certainly didn't have to like it as much as he obviously does!

3. decide whether you want to support a fledgling Cornish games producing company. This is their second project and they delivered a fine product first time round and on time too.

4. if you're still in then it's time to pledge some money. You don't get charged if the project fails. You only get charged on it succeeding, on Sunday 29th June 2014.

5. click on 'Back this Project'.

6. choose your pledge level - £22 for UK addresses, or £27 for EU, US and Canada, etc.

7. follow the payment requirements, nothing out of the ordinary of course.

8. spread the word... Facebook, tweet, all those things.

9. thanks!!

Finding Liam Neeson...

Liam Neeson. How to contact the great man, that's this morning's question. He has a little something waiting his attention but he possibly doesn't even know about it as yet. His agent surely owes him this opportunity? I wonder what he'd make of it? Liam that is, not his agent!

So I'm sat outside having my Bran Flakes this morning and the bees flitting around the newly planted flowers grab my attention. They go over and over the same path and then will rest suddenly, or is that when they're doing the business end of their reconnoissance? I guess so. For me, one of the best things about Waggle Dance is the set up you can put in place in the early rounds. Extending your bee population, or your hive makes sense but you don't want to miss early opportunity to collect pollen if your opponents aren't able to, and maybe the Queen Bee Cards will bring you a huge favour early too, who knows?

In the mid-game the pollen collection is what it's all about and having some good Queen Bee Cards by then is crucial. And it could well be time to restructure the hive or pick up the odd piece of pollen to ensure you've not wasted any. All that honey needs producing; I bet bees are efficient little buggers!

The kickstarter campaign for Waggle Dance started with a real flourish and on the back of the UK Games Expo I expected this to then take off even further. It's choogling along quite nicely but needs a little helping hand. Just like the bees. We need to give them a chance, hence the Hora garden having more flowers this year, and we've left the sage to flower with it's beautiful mauve stalks that the bees have been going crazy over for weeks now.

So, for an outlay of £22 you get a copy of this lovely game, delivered. You help a small Cornish publishing company with their second game, and they've also put together a ton of info on bees on their website, a fascinating study in itself. Another level among the kickstarter pledges is the one just for Liam. His own special opportunity to assist. That's why we need to find him, urgently!!

All help greatly appreciated, obviously...

Okay, take me and Liam to the page...

Just wow!

So, been working hard - couldn't believe it myself - on the PGCert final assignment and a big slug of marking too, but it's all done now so I can get back to explaining my brain for all and none...

Find the Moose on facebook

There are a few topics to catch up on but today's going to be a visual feast. First up is a wonderful creation by Chill, the drummer man in And Also The Trees, the joker in the pack, the entertainer when all else fails. I love his paintings, drawings, doodles and this is a real gem;

The secondly the artwork for the box for Waggle Dance has been uploaded to the Geek and I simply had to share it. Look at how colourful and detailed this is. Blown away is not a phrase I use lightly, or often, but maybe this did it;

Full details can be found on boardgamegeek

Train and Waggle Dance, yes again!!

So my Saturday has been taken up with two games. Not what I had expected but it's turned out to a fascinating day. I had plans of writing some of my teaching essay for Uni, it's due in tomorrow week so about time I dedicated an hour or two on it. As it was I got a lot more written than I'd expected and so was ready to learn a new game, The End of Atlantis. At Essen last year, Philip and I sat down at this amazing circular board and waiting patiently for someone to come over and sell it to us. Being British we were very patient for a good quarter of an hour and then sloped away hopefully unnoticed! Never mind. I picked it up a few weeks ago now, the few bits on the Geek read well and the board is so very pretty....

As it was Henry from Grublin dropped me an email saying he was hoping to submit Waggle Dance to the Geek today so that it's up tomorrow on its own page. That's where all games dream of being, and will be the start of the funding process too, with it being launched on kickstarter on the 27th May. As Hagrid would say, 'Oops, I shouldn't have told you that!' My resemblance to the character has been put to me before so don't go there. Henry was after some feedback on his blurb for the game so a few us have been trading insults and suggestions, changing words and tea-towel ideas. It was a very interesting process to be involved in and hopefully of use.

During the conversations I caught up with the fact that the mighty Tractor Boys have another season down under, although that will include a trip down the road to see them against Brentford. And an East Anglian derby of epic proportions is still looking very likely too. I then swooped down onto a conversation about depressing games. Depression being so dear to my heart, and even closer to my head, I was intrigued by the number of bizarrely themed games. Some well clearly humour-based but others, well, I don't know what the designer(s) were thinking. Then one provoked even more than the usual debate. A game simply called 'Train'.

It's taken me hours to read through all the posts on a single discussion about this game, it's heavy reading and I'm not sure I'm quite bright enough to have taken it all in. Anyway, the 'game' is a one off, not made public, only used by the 'designer' to offer her take on history, in this case placing Jews on trains as part of the holocaust. It is more of an art-piece than a game. But that gaming is able to offer such important subjects for consideration is important to me. Whether the designer should have ensured more historical accuracy I'm not so convinced about. Some of the more valid points, in my opinion, are;

• 'the strength of the game is that it gets a reaction from everyone who encounters it'
• 'it makes devaluing life shocking or horrifying'
• 'meant to elicit a knee-jerk reaction and prod our consciences'

There are discussions on the possible self-publicising nature of the designer. Those that say the hidden information should not have been hidden. That tragedy should not be politicized. For me though I believe that anything that raises this topic, in whatever form, has to be valid. We must never forget what happened there, never let it happen again although I'm far from convinced that we're doing that even now. 

Boxes, Part One

There's been a discussion on BoardGameGeek about a new game called Splendor. Unusually, everyone seems to love the game. It's been well manufactured with great components, it's easy to learn and play, it has a good rule book and I picked up my copy for around £22, so very affordable I would say. The discussion however, has been about the size of the box. The photos illustrate the point. So, why is the box so huge?

 

The main responses centre upon having a box of 8.5"x11"x2.8" (21.5x27.6x6.7cm) that will sit prominently next to other games of equal stature. All very subjective I'd say but once I started thinking about it it's true. Any game coming in a smallish box, say the size of two packs of cards, can't possibly be anything other than a light filler, once of those games without much brain-power needed for the start or end of an evening. It'll last about half an hour tops and normally cater for up to six players. Anything that comes in a small, compact box simply cannot be greater than that.

Splendor with its insert, all very neat and tidy

Looking at my collection there are some gems to be had in small boxes. And yet they don't get the love they surely deserve. Is it to do with box size? Well, yes, perhaps it is. I'll list the following; The Great Heartland Haulage Co., Glen More, Lungarno, Aton. All punch well above their weight but I've struggled to get them played at the club.

There are then those that come in boxes way bigger than necessary, that confirm that the opposite is also true, i.e. the box is at least medium size and therefore the game must be a good strategic one inside. These would include Battle Line, Carcassonne, Race for the Galaxy, all highly regarded.

Interestingly, a lot of two-player games come in a standard, square box of around 8"x8"x1.25" (20x20x3.2cm). Your expectation of it being a two-player game is set up by the box size. You'd be surprised if it could play more. Balloon Cup is one such game, part of the publisher, Kosmos's 2-player series. Yet even the French guy who's picture I've stolen has made himself a very smart tin one to hold everything in.

On the other side of the argument are those games collectors who try to conceal the fact that they own too many games by decanting as much as possible into smaller boxes. You should see the expansions I have in my Carcassonne box, or Agricola, even allowing for my luxurious cotton baggies from www.thecleverbaggers.co.uk.

I guess that box size will also come into the equation of pricing a game. The smaller the box the cheaper it must be right? Yet, make it a medium size and charge low and the suspicions about it will escalate. There's no way they could have turned out a good game for that price in that size box, unless the components are sub-standard perhaps?

Anyway, I've got Henry of Grublin thinking about this issue now as part of the Waggle Dance manufacturing process. I'm sure he'll make the right call for the game!

Waggle Dance Revisited

Ok, so Easter's been good. Family seen and fed, some games played, Norwich lost... and finally I have the chance to look at Waggle Dance again. I like it. A lot. It plays really well, with two, three and four. It has plenty of options, plenty of room for pontification and analysis paralysis, what's not to love?

The Easter Bunny created chaos in Sunny Hounslow

I suppose I wish I could come up with some magical suggestions to improve the icons that Henry has asked me to consider. Yes, they're not quite there as yet. Or maybe they are, maybe someone has resolved this and I just don't know about it yet!! I do so hope so. It'll be close to perfect once they're right. And the rule sheet. It's in a 'map' fold-out style and I like that a lot. I think the order's slightly awry but not far off. I've made a few suggestions re terminology/language, nothing major and hopefully that will be of use. Anyways, I feel privileged to have the chance to try it out during development. It's going to do well come release time. Hurrah!

Also played some more Granny Wars, top game that, all the way from NZ. Plus Splendor which is another short, simple and involving game. I even managed to beat Basti at The City, now we've sorted out the rules a bit it's a bit easier for me!

Listened to a ton of music too; Bombay Bicycle Club, Tricky, John Newman, Los Campesinos, Soul Family Sensation pretty much on rotation. I so love my music.

Waggle, such a great word

Wow, don't think I've played so many games in one week, been very fortunate this last week. Up in Suffolk the children and I played Cuatro, Battle Line, Hanabi and The City multiple times. Then Wednesday night - board games at the London Apprentice with the IBG (Isleworth Board Gamers) - it was another Hanabi and Railways of North America. Yesterday, Tom and Ivy (age 19 months) popped over and we played The City again with Basti, plus Babel which I liked a lot, another Uwe Rosenberg game. Today Tom and Ivy picked me up and we went over to Andy's in Whitton for the afternoon and more new games to me anyway! Splendor I've ordered and playing it I'm glad I have, another game I enjoyed (must check to see if there are many I don't: hold on, Galaxy Trucker, Steam Planet to name but a couple!), followed by the prototype I've been sent by Grublin Games, and then Legendary, Marvel Heroes deck builder.

Railways of North America is an interesting expansion to the Railways Tycoon / Railways of the World series. After the original board, Eastern US, and the expansion, Western US, the North America was never going to be anything but Canada but I guess the US company couldn't lower themselves to calling it such in case their main buying audience in the USA were put off. Anyway, the Canada map is wide, and thin. It looked too small to play well with four but with four of us keen to try it we were able to disprove this. The box says it plays up to five, I think that would be very cramped but you never know. There are some pretty good unique features; the snow line, which adds to the cost of building per hex; the mines, which add additional cubes - 1 to 5 depending on your luck - to grey cities; and the ferry cards allowing you to connect to some offshore cities. We enjoyed it. We thought it was going to be expensive but in the end not that many loans were taken. The major routes didn't bring in many points and the proliferation of grey cities was interesting. This expansion also comes with cards and rules to combine West and East US maps, bring it on.

So, let me tell you all about the 'prototype game'. It's called 'Waggle Dance', great name. It's by a designer called Mike Nudd and Henry of Grublin told me it was his immediate choice for the publishing company's second game. It's bee themed, which I like. It contains 18 dice per player, which I'm often dubious about. Tom and I set it up yesterday but then missed the rules for the 'Queen Cards' so gave up at that point. I found them, on the back of the rules sheet, so played a four player couple of rounds early today and then at Andy's we played a full game.  Henry had told me that they were happy with game play and I have to say that everything worked well for us. It was tight on the scoring, and there are certainly a lot of decisions to make. The use of the dice is perfect for me. Plenty of choice as to which action you decide to allocate your dice too - like Castles of Burgundy for me - and the chance to tweak them with cards as well: excellent.

card backs, the 'worker' dice, pollen cubes and 'Queen' cards

Henry's questionnaire had us looking at the icons and rules. Both aren't far off but do need some improvements, which is what sending prototypes is all about. Am planning to play with the family over the weekend, will be interesting to see what Basti and Josie make of it. I've certainly bought into it. Andy earlier suggested that it offered nothing 'new', and I suppose he has a point. But then if you expect every new game to have new mechanics you're going to be disappointed. If I was looking for every new novel I read to offer something new... you get the point. For me, the mechanics and the play was great. There are a vast number of big decisions to make, several options to consider and most importantly you need to get your timing as efficient as possible. Indeed, it was heavier than I thought it would be, which is good. The rules are pretty straight forward after one game, I doubt you'd need to refer to much for following games. I'm excited by it. Keen to try it some more. Always good signs.