Happy Birthday to me!

January.
It was the day before we leave for Australia for our 3-month rotation. Despite my protest, Jacelyn came over late at night to pass me something.

When she reached my place, she showed me the two HUGE boxes in her car. Inside these big boxes there were quite a number of smaller wrapped boxes, so packed that they looked like canned sardin.

I'm guessing it's my (very) early birthday gift. Yay!

I slowly unwrapped all the presents and revealed all the surprises she had for me. Games I received includes Middle Earth Quest, Belfort, Alien Frontiers, Mansion of Madness, Ankh Morpork, Memoir 44, Blood Bowl Team Manager and Troyes. They may not sound familiar to you, but these games are pretty awesome, and they were on my wishlist since last year!

So many games - but too little space in my luggage. I only managed to fit 2 games in my luggage. If I could, I would definitely bring all of them to play with in Australia.

Thanks everyone who participated in this big surprise! It really meant a lot to me that everyone cared and contributed to get me something that I really like. It really warms my heart to see your name on the box. Truly a memorable thing for me.

Thanks boardgamecafe for everything they have done for us boardgamers. They have been really nice to us, and probably one of the main perpetuating for our hobby :D

Also, thanks JC and her family for organizing this wonderful surprise! I really didn't see it coming at all.

......... Now I have to figure out where else to put the games. My cupboard is officially full of games! :D

MAGACON 2011 - Thoughts

About MAGACON:

MaGaCon is Malaysia’s first annual independent Analog and Digital gaming convention run by Gamers for Gamers. It is a gathering of the gaming culture in Malaysia and a chance for people to experience the gaming culture and lifestyle of Malaysia.

Every major type of game will be offered for people who come to MaGaCon. Come enjoy LAN games in the PC gaming section, or watch massive armies fight in the Miniature section, or gather your group together to play at the board games tables and finally for those who wish to put their fantasy into reality you can play in the Rifts LARP.

Finally for hardcore people who live, sleep and eat gaming there is the GamerLympics where your gaming skills will be pushed to the limit.

For two days gamers from all over Malaysia will get together to play, compete, laugh and share their love of gaming.

JC and I attended MAGACON with the people from boardgamecafe, we had nothing but fun there! Although it's in a smaller scale than I thought, it was quite interesting to see all types of games - PC game, boardgame, console, miniature/tabletop games, card games etc - all in one place.

Limited edition MAGACON dice! Want one? :P

JC: Initially, we only got 2 dice each from our goodie bags because we pre-registered about 2 weeks ago but because I joined the GamerLympics, I got another 10 more for making it to the top 32 =D! If you haven't seen the dice, it's quite big and nice to use =D! It would've been cooler if MGC represented the number 6 but it's number 1 instead but no worries, it's still awesome =)!

Day 1 - The Fight for King of Catan Continues

If you're reading this then probably you're aware of the progress of the Settlers of Catan tournament in the past few weeks. Qualifiers were held in various boardgame cafes, and the last of the qualifier round was held on the day of MAGACON itself. This was followed by the finals later in that afternoon.

The prize? 15th anniversary edition of Settlers of Catan. Awesome! Various versions of Catan were brought to the table that day- new, old and not forgetting turkish too.

There were enough players that day for 3 tables of Catan in the qualifying round that morning. The winners of each tables were joined by others who qualified previously, in the run for the Catan Cup.

CK sat through the game with the Final Four.

So who won the 15th Anniversary Catan set? I suspect someone else would update on that later on, so I'll just keep quiet for now! 

What about me? I qualified for the Catan Finals too. Well... That was just luck. I never stood a chance against these guys! Well I didn't like the game anyway it's a luck game it has dice in it who wants the 15th anniversary Catan anyway it's not a fun game yes I'm so bitter :P

Jokes aside, these guys were really good! I only had 5 or 6 points when the leading guy got his 10th victory point.

Who's the Biggest Spender?

After wrapping up the Catan tournament, nothing big was scheduled and the crowd has gotten thinner as dinner time approached. I sat down for a game of Last Will - a new game at Essen this year.

I liked the artwork and the components of the game. The theme was rather unique too. Often we play to acquire money/victory points. In this game, the goal is to be the first to bankrupt! The gameplay was simple but somewhat confusing to me at first - especially the action and activation part, but everyone picked up the game rather quickly. I was the first to go bankrupt in the game!

Warhammer

On the other side of the hall, there was a Warhammer 40k tournament going on as well. Each of the players were equipped with an impressive team! I can look at their painted miniatures the all day long!

I was interested in getting into the hobby, so I dropped by their booth and the people were really nice! We attended the painting workshop too, there was an amazing guy who taught us how to paint miniatures - from drybrush to washing etc.

JC and I painted a couple of space marines - mine in red and hers in blue. Just looking at the base, you can tell that she's obviously the better painter.

JC: Haha! I think our mentor had a headache with us because we were suppose to dry brush it and not cover all the creases but I couldn't help it! My OCD-ness made me need to cover all possible areas =P! Haha! Our mentor keep saying "Don't worry, that can be fixed." but I think after a while, he realized that we had loads of fun painting it the wrong way xD!

I thought Jun Yet's gun looked more used and I couldn't understand the concept of using the brush horizontally instead of using it vertically to paint the raised areas. Only on the second day, I understood how to do that and it definitely looked way better! I love Devlan Mud the most! Makes a HUGE difference =D!

Moving on!

Gamerlympics

One of the main events at MAGACON was Gamerlympics, where gamers compete in various games of different category, and the winner would walk away with a PAID trip to US Penny Arcade Expo. I have no idea what's that by the way. Anyway I guess any PAID trip is goooooood.

Games played includes - Pacman(!!!!), some dancing game using Xbox with motion sensor, Magic the Gathering, Settlers of Catan, Tower Defense, and Dirt (some  sort of racing game). 

It's like a cyber cafe there. Free gaming for everyone!

JC: I remember asking CK "Can I go play PacMan?" which was then followed by Magic the Gathering from 5pm to 8pm+ because each person had to play with 3 different opponents for 3 times so that was 9 games.

When I first heard that M:tG was part of the GamerLympics, I was discouraged to join it since I have never played M:tG before but after having a tutorial on how to play and getting a free deck, I just thought "Heck! Why not?". It must be hard playing against a girl because if a guy beats a girl, he's a bully but if he loses.. It's bad either way =P!

Anyway, I was proud to say that out of the 8 games played, I won 3 games and tied for one game =D! I thought that was quite good for an absolute newbie xD!

JC joined the Gamerlympics and went quite far, partly due to the fact that they didn't have enough players to compete with. They were supposed to have the last 32 players from the Magic the Gathering round to advance to the next round on Day 2, but they only had 18 players still playing at the end of Day 1. Nevertheless, she had quite a lot of fun meeting people and playing Magic. Not so fun for our tummy though! Day 1 ended around 9pm. 

Day 2 - Catan in Gamerlympics

As mentioned earlier, gamers had to sit down and play through a game of Catan as part of the Gamerlympics! To me this was an amazing experience, to be able to teach people who are new to this category of gaming - boardgaming. Just seeing this huge amount of new people learning to play ANY board game is a breathtaking scene indeed!

Ironically, JC lost in this round! But anyway she won 4 Magic boosters for coming to this stage.

JC: I give chance to other people la! *excuse excuse*

Not to mention a few starter decks too. How generous of them!

No age limit for boardgames!

There's a fever starting up!

We had a chance to bring Startup Fever to the table that day. It was the first kickstarter that we pledged together in the forum, which subsequently led to a surge in other kickstarter threads in the forum. After waiting for around half a year, the game finally arrived on friday! I went through the rulebook and we had the first play of the game, in the first MAGACON!

In this game, players represent companies and they have 2 products each under development. At the start, the products were developed in "stealth mode" or closed beta testing. There were 4 categories of product - media, e commerce, social networking and communication. Each product only competes within the category, so it's pretty thematic. At year end, better products from each category will draw users from other player's product, which makes sense too.

I liked the way the tension builds up towards the end of the game, where competition for users was a huge factor and everyone was poaching nerds from other companies.

The game was quite tight in the end, the scores were close. There was some question about how does "user loss" fit the game thematically. Frankly, I'm not sure myself despite a search for answers on boardgamegeek.  During the "User Loss' phase, launched products roll die to determine how many users other companies lose, which seemed odd indeed. Probably some last minute addition to balance the game?

Going once.. Going twice.... SOLD!

Believe it or not, an auction was held! I was pretty excited actually, to see how people bid and counter bid for items. At the end of the day, a motherboard and a high end graphic card were auctioned off - at less than half the price. What a bargain!! I wished I had brought enough cash to buy the graphic card, I didn't know that there will be an auction taking place that day.

JC: Aiya! If I knew you wanted, I would've lent you the RM300+ that I had =P!

RM200? Do I see RM 210? What? Rm 250! Going once.. going twice......

The Painting Demon

I'm not kidding. The winner takes home a pewter painting demon trophy or some sort.

It's a painting competition, for both professionals and beginners like myself. JC and I went over to the booth and started painting hobbits today, expecting nothing when we submitted our painted miniatures to the competition booth.

Careful not to sneeze while painting!

JC: Initially, I "chin chai" (simply) painted my hobbit but when I heard there was a competition, I quickly painted a space marine properly! Who knew that my beloved "clash of colours" hobbit won =D! 

If you can't see the hobbit properly, the hair was gold, the shirt was red, the pants were green and the cape was blue so you could imagine the headache our mentor had after seeing that xD!

Well, to our surprise, we won in the Beginner Category!

JC won the painting brush, while I won the painting set!

JC: When they first announced the 3rd place winner, I was like "Aww mann...." because i thought the most I could win was third place even if the prize was 10 MGC dice so you could imagine the huge shock I had when I was announced as the second place winner! I was literally ECSTATIC!! 

Funny thing was, Jun Yet wasn't the first announced winner =P! They actually accidentally called the name of the professional category then they said "Oops! Wrong person." which was when I felt bad for the person (because I didn't know he was in the pro category) so again I was SHOCKED when "Wong Jun Yet" was announced the first place winner for the Beginners category! Congrats Jun yet =D! It actually looks great =D!

The painted miniatures were showcased on a table, to be judged later. They look kind of impressive together. Some of the people submitted really good, pro paintwork - as seen in the picture above (the red guy, bottom left). JC also painted the blue space marine in the picture. I thought that it was really pretty.

My personal favorite. Not sure which model won the Pro category though.

Top: my hobbit. I think I painted the cape quite nicely hehe.
Bottom: JC's hobbit.

JC: I gave my painted hobbit a little more work before submitting it and I added a silver outline to the shirt, pants and the cape, which made it look better (surprisingly xD!).


Lucky Draw - Santa came early

It was our lucky day. Really. JC shouted in disbelief when my number was called out - I won a HUGE bean bag!!!!!! 

The bean bad was as big as me!

At first I was rather disappointed, as a girl won the Warhammer set in the lucky draw, right before my number was drawn. I really wanted the Warhammer set! Then someone came up with a brilliant idea - to trade my bean bag for the Warhammer set.

WOW. Just WOW. After some struggle, she gave in to the big comfy bean bag, and I went home with my precious Warhammer set!

It was a really awesome day for me. First we get the paint brush. Then we get the painting set. Then at the end of the day, we get the miniatures! The day just get better and better!

JC: It was as if there is a Santa up there working his miracles in his own way because Jun Yet really wanted to buy this exact set as it was a great starter set for 2 players and he was quite ready to buy it too! Thank you very much Esther, for being our Santarina and making Jun Yet so very happy.

JC: Thank you so much CK =D! Words really can't describe how much fun we had and how happy we are to be a part of this awesome convention!

JC: Jun Yet forgotten to mention that there were about 7-9 motion sensor "thingys" that were loads of fun!! I had fun dancing to Lady Gaga and many other random songs with Kah May and I even did a few solo dances =P!

Important fact to note: I fell on my bum twice during the two days that I was playing with these games =P! Once while I was racing with Jun Yet and once more while we were trying to maneuver a raft. However, being able to slice fruits at Fruit Ninja with my leg was really fun so if you ever see any of these demo sets, feel free to try them out! It is quite fun =D! 

That's all for now. we really had lots of fun at the convention. If you guys are around next year, be sure to attend this event! Thanks BGC for giving us volunteers not one, but TWO limited edition MAGACON Catan shirt, for buying us lunch and most of all for letting us to be a part of this big event!

Gaming at OTK Cheras

Hi people!

We just finished our exams a couple of weeks back, and now we're officially back in action! Well not that we've stopped gaming at any point of time, just that we took a break from posting.

The day after we returned to KL, we attended a session at OTK Cheras. Well, it's good to be back. Playing games without worrying about studies/exams is a luxury.

JC was ecstatic to find a present from her secret santa under the X'mas tree!

JC: LoL.. I think I look quite scary in the picture above but I guess it captured my true excitement when I saw the present =D! I did not expect it at all (CK is good.. I would've hinted something if I were CK =P) so I was jumping around and had that scary/happy smile on my face =P!

We joined both boardgamegeek and boardgamecafe's secret santa programme. More on that next time!

Game #1 - Glen More
Played this game with CK and Heng that day. This is my second game of Glen More, having played it once during the BGC Retreat.

JC: I think I was the only one who had no idea what was happening until a few rounds into the game xD! Jun Yet played it during the retreat and I think Heng has played it before too. I'm not sure about CK but he seems to be familiar with all games (0_o!). So you could imagine how I was just going with the flow, with that I mean I was just following what everyone else was doing xD!

This game has an interesting mechanics, along with logical tile placements rules that isn't too difficult to learn. Victory points are scored for 3 times throughout the game for each of the following categories - wine, chieftain (basically your extra workers), and special tiles. Points are awarded based on the difference of one particular resources you have with the player who has the lowest number of that resource. For example, if I have 4 wine and JC has 2, I would score only for 2 wine. More points are given per resource if the difference is greater. Throughout the course of the game you can also acquire VP chips by trading wool, meat, wood, stone etc by using a butcher or carnival tile.

Also, each tile you acquire comes with a 3-point penalty at the end of the game. So make sure you do things efficiently!

JC expanded along the river.

JC: Heng brought some colorful Mentos and was sweet enough to share =D!!

My meeples, ready to work!

 I managed to rush wine early game, which gave me quite a lot of VP for the 3 scoring rounds.

Heng and CK, planning their expansion.

The game was a close one. I won in the end by 1 or 2 points, mainly because I had prior training during the BGC retreat. I only had my wine to generate points for me 3 times, while other players kept converting their resources to an obscene amount of points during the game. I would have lost if the game lasted a little bit longer! 

It's quite a fun game, seems like a good gateway game.

Game #2 and #3 - Games with names I couldn't pronounce nor remember

Wai Yan brought out a game they play sometimes during boardgamekids, and we certainly aren't as good as the kids at this game! Basically there are 5 objects on the table, each with different shape and color. When a card is flipped over, you're supposed to pick the item that is featured on the card. Otherwise, pick the one that is not featured in the card, in terms of color and shape. Sounds confusing?

Example: Items on the board include: white ghost, blue book, red chair, green bottle and grey mouse. When a card is flipped and it has grey mouse and blue ghost, you're supposed to grab the grey mouse. That gives you one point. If the card has white book and red bottle, you're supposed to grab the grey mouse. Get it?

JC: Oh my goodness!! This must be the hardest game that I have ever played! Ever! Wai Yan is an expert in this game and she beat us hands down!

Kids are amazing. We struggled like mad!

Add caption

This is another interesting game. Basically the game revolves around dropping cubes in and guess which floor it landed on.

JC: Hahaha
! I actually made a really good guess in a trial run with Kareem and Jun Yet so Kareem was like "Whoa!!" but what is important in this game is also some concentration + memory in addition to good hearing but I'm easily distractable so later on, I realize I was bad in this game too xD!

Meanwhile, the big boys were playing 18xx series.

Game #4 - Panic Station

This game was on my Essen watch list, due to the traitor mechanic which I'm quite fond of. Thanks Kareem for bringing this game!

Sifu teaching the game.

Basically you control 2 units - human and your drone. Only your drone can attack. Aim of the game is to find the nest and burn it with 3 gasoline. The trick is that one person is infected by the host and can infect other people during the game - by the forced trading of cards whenever they meet.

I was the first to be infected. I waited for a chance to infect people in a manner that would not draw attention to me, but I failed miserably. I was not in a position to meet with other people freely when I was infected by the host. Eventually I infected Kareem too, but it was already too late. The nest was torched right after that!

The game was rather a disappointment to me. I think each player only had like, what, 3 or 4 rounds before the nest is found, which is much less than I expected. I barely had the chance to infect anybody in that short period of time! In fact, I barely did anything at all! Okay I'm bitter I know. Maybe I'm not playing it right. I'm eager to give this game another try, but for now, Battlestar Galactica still has the best traitor mechanic. If you have 4 hours to spare. :)

JC: Haha!! We all kinda guessed Jun Yet was the traitor from the start because he said "What does the Biohazard on the card mean" then from the start of the game, we already knew so poor Jun Yet didn't have a chance =P!

Game #5 - Singapore

This game also generated some buzz among boardgame geeks, thanks Kareem again for bringing all the new games!

Asian Meeples!

I lost horribly. I blame the red cubes!

Basically this game is about getting cubes/resources and converting them to points. Typical Euro. Granted, it has some twist - illegal opium gives better return - it's not a very interesting game to me. Love the Asian Meeples though!

Review: The Message

Hi guys! We're back in action... Temporarily.

First I must apologize for the late post on the review/update, we've been very busy with our studies lately (that's a good thing :P ), plus I wanted to play this game a few more times before I make any comment on it. :)

So, let's jump straight to the review.

Objective:

Collect 3 messages that matches your team's colour.

1. FRS wins as a team if any one member collects 3 blue messages.

2. KDR wins as a team if any one member collects 3 red messages.
3. MOF wins individually if he fulfills the winning condition as stated on his character.

4. Forget which team you're on or just for the fun of it, mess with everyone! (Most sought after objective =P)

JC: Haha! These are my cards! Someone sent a trap as a "Exposed message" and to be honest, I can't remember whether I was KDR, FRS or MOF but I took it anyway since if I was on the team, I would want it, if I wasn't then I wouldn't want them to have it and if I was MOF, I needed 3 red msgs I think hehe! 

Pathophysiology/ Expatiation:

(kudos to all the rules-reader out there who understands "expatiation".)

(a) Each player would be dealt a secret loyalty card, which reminds me of Battlestar Galactica and even The Resistance or Bang! So you're either FRS (blue), KDR (red) or MOF (individual/neither). I think the MOF really adds a lot of fun to the game, they ALWAYS spoil your plans.

(b) Player also start with a character card, which gives them special abilities.

**Some cards with has a "S" on the top right hand corner requires you to play it face down and only revealed when certain conditions are fulfilled. These special cards are quite fun to play since some of them have powers that you can use multiple times or a cool power that you can only use once per game =)!

The Message is a card game, pretty easy to pick up actually. During your turn you basically:

1. Draw a card
2. +/- play cards for their effects
3. Transmit a message (play a card for it's color - blue, red or black. If anyone gets 3 black messages, he dies.)

The meat of the game is during the message transmission, where people can intercept or peek at it using cards or do all sorts of thing to it to mess with each other.

JC: The peeking part requires some level of poker face =).

JC: Normally MOF's play like KDR or FRS to either gain trust or get Red or Blue messages as their secret or revealed agenda =P!

Thoughts:

+ FUN, especially with the right crowd.

+ Short version of Battlestar (one of our FAVOURITE game, Hans was supposed to guest blog about it sometime in the future... stay tuned!)..... But actually we played this game so often that I think we could have finished a few games of BSG. The difference is that in BSG, you get to mess with your friends once in 3 hours. The Message allows you to mess with your friends a few dozen times in 3 hours. Of course, they both give different kind of satisfaction. BSG tells an epic and memorable story, this game on the other hand is comprised of a lot of funny moments.

+ Relatively cheap. http://www.boardgamecafe.net/store/shopexd.asp?id=706

+ I like the artwork.


- Need a few games to really grasp how the game works, at times I worried that a few of my friends would lose interest in the game after the first 2 rounds.

- You tend to lose focus after a few consecutive games, sometimes even forgot who your teamate was. (hmmmm did I prove you this round, or was it the previous game?)

- The rulebook. And the words on the cards............. Can be REALLY hard to understand (due to direct translation from Mandarin, I suspect). But the plus point is that we had a good laugh at most of the cards when someone reads their character/cards out loud. This is not a big issue for me, but I expect that many potential buyers/players would be put off by this issue. The translation by Hiew is a MUST.

Prognosis:
The Message is a fun and casual game, and it comes with a pretty attractive price tag and a lot of good quality cards. It's not a game that one can play the whole night (you'll be really confused, with memories mixed up from game to game), but certainly deserves a play every once in a while, e.g while waiting for everybody else to show up for Dominant Species.
1-year survival rate (what are the chances that I'd still ask to play this game  after 1 year of playing this game) - 95%

The last few times I went to OTK Cheras, the people there was playing this game. And boy it was so funny, just looking at them laugh. I tend to gravitate towards middle-heavy games, games that basically gives the mind a good exercise, but games like this reminds me how boardgaming should be - fun.

JC: All in all, absolutely fun =D! It can be a filler or just a game you can play over and over again since there are so many different character cards that you'll never get bored of playing the same old one many times =D!

Plus we played it in a way that everyone gets 2 character cards and choose one from the two then the one that was not chosen was placed into a separate pile so that during the next round, you don't get the same cards again.

Exam Period.

We'll update the blog as soon as our exam is over! Probably this weekend. Stay tuned! :)

Agricola, Warhammer and Modern Art

With exam just around the corner, everyone seems stressed, including our usual gamers. Some had to stay home and study instead of joining us for games. Well, that's what boardgames are for right? To help relieve stress. Or in some cases, add on to it :P

Game #1: Warhammer Invasion

 Jacelyn and I purchased this game second hand from a fellow member from the BGC forum, it came with really nice sleeves for a good price. Since then we have been amassing our warhammer army, getting all the expansions available in BGC during the Opening Sales.

JC: When I first saw this game being sold second hand in BGC's forum, I had absolutely NO IDEA what it was about =P! I asked Jun Yet about it and the minute he said that he has played it before and that it was a good game, I bought it immediately =D! Thanks to my hoarding abilities, I now have loads of fun with this game =D!

Jun Yet wasn't lying when he said we bought all the expansions available in BGC =P! I even bought a Battle Pack because I thought the box looked awesome xD! 

That's me getting my gluteus kicked by Jacelyn in Warhammer Invasion.

That's our second game. Chaos (me) was unable to withstand the continuous assault by the massive orc squads. Took me some time to finish deckbuild 8 decks, but boy it was fun! Reminds me of the old time, playing Pokemon cards.

JC:  I would like to think that my skills helped me to win but to be honest, if Jun Yet hadn't help me make the decks, I highly doubt I would've won plus when I see so many cards, I just see stars =P!

Game #2: Modern Art

In denial of my defeat in Warhammer Invasion, I quickly set up the table for Modern Art and hope nobody remembers it.

Jacelyn from New York Art Gallery.

Hans from Paris counting his money.

Hans won by quite a big margin! His investment on Christine P's arts paid off quite well.

JC: Haha! During the last round, 2 people played 2 doubles of Yoko if I'm not mistaken and out of randomness, I just ended the game with only one card out =P! So it was Yoko +30,000 whereas everything else +0 =P!

Game #3: Agricola

Brought out our old favorite today. Haven't been playing this in a while, since the initial surge of 10 games in few weeks!

JC: I'm the type of person who absolutely loves expansions! Half the time, I don't even know what the expansion does but I always feel that no game is complete until I have all (or majority) of the expansions but after playing Agricola and having 10 of each Minor Improvements and 10 Occupations to choose from to discard 3 each, I then realize how many cards the initial base set already had!

These sheep need a bit of love.

Jacelyn swept the whole crowd and placed them in the spacious farm. Roam free!

Now, this is a rare sight - the usually carnivorous Jacelyn didn't slaughter any animals for food. :)

JC: I was too busy farming and getting wood la =P! With a maximum of 3 wood added at that action per round, it's hard to get any wood even with 4 players plus everyone was hoarding wood (Yes Jo! We're talking about you!)

Han's farm. A lot of underutilized spaces, but he's got tonnes of cattle. And a horse. We scored the same amount of points hehe.

JC: His horse was quite cool! Even though points were deducted for not having one of each type of animal, he got bonus 2 points so that helped to neutralize the points lost there =D!

As usual, Jo beat us again. Best farmer award goes to Jo! Smallest in size but not be underestimated.

JC: To those of you who have never played with Jo or Nick, these two people are the most quiet people and suddenly they kick your butts and you'll lose horrendously! Nick & Jo always Cylons on a random note.