A few weeks ago, I let slip a little hint about a new online auction registration system. Well, it's now time to spill the beans and introduce our online FallCon Auction Manager.

Probably the most consistent feedback we received in our survey last year, was frustration with our auction, especially from those of you who traveled from afar with games to sell who didn't get a chance to submit their games. Well, this year we're taking the guess work out of the process for all involved by implementing an online submission process.

Our new FallCon Auction Manager will allow convention registrants (only) to submit up to 20 games each, up to a total of 500. Here's a breakdown on how to use the system:

1. Register for FallCon using a unique email address (only registrants will be able to gain access to the Auction Manager).
2. Go to the FallCon Auction Manager and create an account using the same unique email address you used to register.
3. Confirm the account creation via the email link we send you and login to the FallCon Auction Manager.
4. Once logged in, you will be able to add, modify and delete your 20 entries, as well as view all submissions from other registrants.
5. The Manager also allows registrants to download a CSV of the auction items and all relevant info including (name, reserve price, game type, condition, language, completeness, punched state and seller comments). We figure this might be handy for some of you at the auction.
6. At the convention, all games will need to be submitted before Saturday at 12:30pm. In the unlikely event that the auction limit of 500 isn't met by Saturday at noon, we will open the floodgates to anyone with extra games.

All of our other auction rules will remain in place.

So if you have games you want to auction off this year, best to register early and get your games in before we reach that magic number 500.

All of this nerdy coding goodness is courtesy of our resident Code Monkey, Jordan Pratt. He's earned our collective respect, good karma and certainly deserves a few wins at the game table. Jordan, just let us know when you want to redeem those favors.

Jasen
 

One of the events I'm most excited about on our schedule this year is the Tichu Tournament. Tichu is a partnership card game (2 vs. 2) that merges rules from Poker and Janitor. While players play increasingly larger poker hands in attempts to win tricks, the real trick to the game is accurately predicting whether you will be the first to rid yourself of cards in a round.

Tichu is a favorite among several of the FallCon crew and we've seen its popularity increase dramatically over the last few years at our convention. Last year, it definitely made a breakthrough and appeared to be the default game being played in between scheduled events. Considering the apparent popularity among our attendees, it made perfect sense to add it to our schedule.

The plan is to run the event as a 16-team single elimination event. Highest score after each 45 minute round or first team to reach 1000+ pts will move on to the next round. Last round will go the full distance to 1000 pts. We want to encourage folks to register with their partners but you can also register for the event as an individual and we will pair you up. We anticipate this event to fill up so we'd recommend you register as soon as you can.

In a moment of amazing synchronicity, the Sentry Box is providing you the perfect opportunity to learn the game, test the local competition or brush those cobwebs away before FallCon! Greg is hosting his very own Tichu Tournament at the Box on Thursday July 29th. Entry is $10 but you end up getting that back in store credit. Plus you have a chance of earning some additional store credits if you win the tourney - not to the mention the priceless bragging rights.

See you there!

Jasen
 

As was the case last year, we are reserving one of our Friday Night slots in our roster of game events for the People's Choice Game. After some friendly prodding from our faithful website/blog readers, we've opened up the nomination and voting process via a geeklist on BoardGameGeek. We're looking for a fun, tournament worthy addition to our schedule so head over to the geeklist, nominate a favorite and vote for all the games you'd be willing to play. Keep in mind, you may want to check the geeklist regularly to see what other people nominate.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/56458/fallcon-2010-peoples-choice-game

Use this Geeklist to nominate ONE game that you think would be well suited to the 4-5 hr time slot (shorter games will be played multiple times). Once a game is nominated, use the thumbs up feature to vote for games you'd like to see become the "People's Choice" for 2010. For those of you who don't have a BGG account, feel free to nominate/vote for games in the comments for this blog post. I'll update the geeklist as often as possible with your nominations & votes as long as the comments are NOT anonymous. Last year's choice was Glory to Rome.

Remember: each person may nominate a single game to the list but you can vote for as many games as you wish. We look forward to seeing your nominations!

Jasen
 

I hope everyone had a great Canada Day long weekend (or July 4th long weekend for those fans of ours across the border). I suspect many of you managed to indulge in some celebratory beverages and snacks, maybe even a game or two. A select few of you though managed to find the time to click on our "Register Now" button to find out it had gone LIVE over the weekend! As of July 1, online registration is available for FallCon 23.

I want to quickly highlight the benefits of registering online:

• Early bird pricing on weekend passes in effect until August 31st.
• Register to guarantee your spot at the table for your favorite game events.
• Event head count tracking lets us know if we need to modify the number of copies to moderate.
• Online registrations makes our life simpler and makes the lines move quicker on opening day - we're process optimization geeks too.
• Online registrants will gain access to our soon-to-be-released online auction submission form.

Details on that last little news item are forthcoming but we expect to have the auction registration up within a couple weeks.

So register as soon as you can and let your friends and family know about us too by referring them, tweeting, buzzing and Facebooking!

See you soon across a game table,

Jasen
 

Happy Canada Day everyone!

And what better day to announce our list of semi-finalists in the 2010 Canadian Game Design Award?

We had a total of 18 truly fantastic submissions. The competition was fierce but in the end, the first round judges decided to select the following 8 designs for the next round of playtesting (in no particular order):

• Graeme Jahns - The Great Pyramid
• Orin Bishop  - Argo
• Jay Cormier & Sen Lim - Jungle Jam
• Roberta Taylor - Octopus' Garden
• Emmanuel Aquin - D-Day Dice
• Alan R Biggs - That Property Flipping Game
• Leif Steiestol - I Dig the Moon
• John Lucas - Fruition

All designers should be commended for their excellent work as it wasn't easy to make our selections. We can only hope the crop of designs is as good next year. Never too early to start working on those designs for the 2011 Award.

We will have an announcement about the selected finalists in a few months once initial playtesting as been conducted. Congratulations and best of luck to all semi-finalists!

Jasen & Brent
 

Schotten Totten – Review

Schotten Totten is a two player game designed by Reiner Knizia in 1999. It is currently published by Pro Ludo. (This review was originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Schotten Totten:

• Designed by: Reiner Knizia
• Published by: Pro Ludo
• Number of players: 2-2
• Playing time: 20 min
• Player ages: 8+

A Quick Overview

Each player is the leader of one of two villages in the Scottish Highlands. These villages are usually peace-loving folk but love to make sure that no one encroaches on their territory.

Every once in a while, however, the border stones that delineate territories get moved and then things start to get a bit scary!

As village leader, you get to line up your 27 clansmen at each of the boundary stones and reassert your village’s territory!

Game Play

The deck of 54 cards is shuffled and six are dealt out to each player. The remainder form a draw pile. The cards are broken down into six clans (colours) of nine clansmen (numbered “1″ through “9″).

On a player’s turn, he performs the following actions:

• Play a card
• Claim a boundary stone (if possible)
• Draw a card

A player must play a card at one of the boundary stones; no more than 3 clansmen may be present on either side of the boundary stone.

A player then can claim stone if his combination of played cards is stronger than the opponents or can prove that his opponent cannot play a stronger hand.

Hand rankings use poker hands and are as follows (highest to lowest) :

• Ordered Clan = straight flush
• Schottentot Team = 3 of a kind
• The Clan = flush
• Schottentot Squadron = straight
• Wild Horde = Any 3 cards

The winner is the one that can claim any 5 boundary stones or 3 adjacent boundary stones!

Observations

A 2-player card game is always handy every once in a while. This one is designed by Reiner Knizia and it is fun. It plays in about 20 minutes, cheap and is easily transported.

For such a little game, there is much going on here. Throughout most of the game, you will have a hand of six cards and you must play a card and commit your clansmen!

Do you hold out to get the straight flush or play it hoping you’ll get a stronger card when you draw? These are some fun choices to make.

And when your opponent plays a card that you needed, you will have to rethink your plays.

This game is reimplemented as “Battle Line” and has a wargame theme with a few additions. One of the additions is the inclusion of the “Tactics” cards which allow you to break the basic rules in a few ways.

The newer edition (2004) of Schotten Totten includes a set of “Tactics” cards with the same goofy cartoony Scots A whole lot of fun indeed.

Personally, I prefer the “Schotten Totten” version over Battle Line as the cartoony Scots are delightfully illustrated.

Happy gaming.

Santiago – Review

Santiago is an auction designed by Claudia Hely and Roman Pelek in 2003 and is currently published by Z-Man Games. (This review was originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com)

Santiago:

• Designed by: Claudia Hely and Roman Pelek
• Published by: Z-Man Games
• Number of players: 3-5
• Playing time: 75 min
• Player ages: 10+

A Quick Overview

Each player is an plantation owner in Santiago competing to grow a variety of crops. Each round, players bid on a variety of crops and ensure that they are irrigated properly.

Careful cooperation with other owners will ensure proper irrigation else your crops run the risk of drying out and providing no income for you!

The winner is the player who has the most successful plantations.

Game Play

The heart of Santiago is the first part of the game which is an auction for a variety of crops. There are 5 different crops and one crop per player becomes available each round.

The auction style is a once-around, unique-bid auction which means that players only have one chance of making a bid. Oftentimes, it is not best to be the one to be first in the auction.

The player who bids the least (or passes first) becomes the Canal Overseer.

The second part of the game is the irrigation phase where players try to place plantation tiles (won during the auction) in strategically viable locations.

Choice of locations is important because a player can choose whether a crop is watered or not.

And now comes the interesting part of the game: negotiating with the Canal Overseer! Each player takes turns placing a bribe for the Canal Overseer to place a water canal.

After this, the Canal Overseer can choose to take any bid(s) or pay 1 more than the total highest bid and place the canal anywhere.

Each plantation yields, to the owner, crop per worker multiplied by the size of the plantation itself. The player with the most money wins.

Observations

This is a negotiation and auction game. If you like games with these mechanics, then you will probably enjoy this game.

This game can be aggressive due to the auctioning and bribing of the Canal Overseer. Often a crop tile will not be irrigated and to get water to it requires the cooperation of the Canal Overseer. If another player decides to provide an opportunity for the Canal Overseer to build elsewhere!

This can cause some consternation for some players (myself included!) but it is fun.

I own this game and I have played it a few times. I think it is a good game and can be played in about an hour or so. It can be used as a tool to teach mathematics to younger players but I feel the 10+ age requirement is ideal.

Another thing to note about negotiation games is that they are very dependent on group dynamics and personalities. If players are equally skilled at making trades/bargaining then this is an excellent game providing much needed table banter.

Otherwise, if there is a mis-match between player skill sets, then it is quite easy to bully the weaker players.

Happy gaming.

Mykerinos – Review

Mykerinos is an area control game designed by Nicolas Oury in 2006 and is currently published by Rio Grande Games. (This review was originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com).

Mykerinos:

• Designed by: Nicolas Oury
  Published by: Rio Grande Games
  Number of players: 2-4
  Playing time: 45 min
  Player ages: 10+

A Quick Overview

Each player is an archaeologist in Egypt working on behalf of several patrons. Over the course of four “seasons” each archaeologist investigates several parcels of land and extracts the bounty of the ancient civilization.

Each parcel of land is sponsored by a specific patron and the player with the most influence in a parcel receives a reward. These patrons also wish to unearth the treasures of the pharaohs and put them on display in a museum.

The museum has wings for each of the 5 patrons and, at the end of the game, a great exhibition is held. The archaeologist/player with the most artifacts in the museum and who has the greatest influence among the patrons wins.

Game Play

On a player’s turn, he has a choice among four possible actions:

• Start a new excavation
• Extend an excavation
• Pass
• Appeal to a patron (after season 1)

By choosing to start an excavation, the player can send a single worker into a particular parcel of land. Extending an excavation allows the player extends the excavation by up to two workers.

If, in a previous round, the player has successfully won a parcel, it is possible to obtain a favour of the patrons. Each of the five patrons provide a particular advantage to the player.

Once players have all passed in succession, game play then moves into the resolution of land parcels. In the first three seasons, there are 4 parcels of land; six parcels in season four.

The winner of the parcel is the one with the most workers. The winner can choose to either exhibit in the museum or take the respective patron card (to be used during the game and for points at the end).

Depending on the winner’s choice, there may be some benefits for the second and third place majorities in each of the parcels.

After the end of the fourth season, the winner is the one with the most victory points.

Observations

When this game first came out in 2006, I thought it was a great little game. It is tense and plays in about 45 minutes.

It is an area majority/area influence game and these are the mechanisms that I enjoy a lot. However, since 2006, there have been quite a number of games that were more satisfactory.

A few players have argued that Sir Brown is overpowered and that getting a few Sir Brown patron cards early in the game is a very strong advantage.

That shouldn’t put you off from ensuring that you have a viable strategy in museum placement as this is how the majority of points are scored.

Another point to note is that it doesn’t hurt to be in 3rd place when parcel resolution takes place. In a few cases, being in third place will net you some patron cards to be used later on in the game.

I would recommend this game if you are looking for a game that plays quickly and provides some tense decisions.

Happy gaming.

Here's a new video that we made for Fallcon 22. This is just to whet your appetite for Fallcon 23! Hope you enjoy it!

Are you game?



See you at Fallcon 23!

Louis XIV – Review

Louis XIV is an area control game designed by Rudiger Dorn in 2005 and is currently published by Rio Grande Games. Mr. Dorn also designed Goa and Jambo. This review was originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com.

Louis XIV:

• Designed by: Rudiger Dorn
• Published by: Rio Grande Games
• Number of players: 2-4
• Playing time: 100 min
• Player ages: 12+

A Quick Overview

Each player is a member of Louis XIV’s (also known as the Sun King) Court and carry out missions and goals at Versailles.

Players, through the careful playing of influence cards, secure favours from other members of the Court. Each of these 12 members of the Court provide various items to the players which help fulfill missions and thus earn victory points.

Securing favours from these 12 courtiers (represented by 12 board tiles) is determined by the player with the most influence markers.

The player with the most victory points wins.

Game Play

On a player’s turn, he plays an influence card. The influence card can either be a curtain (wild) or indicate one of the 12 members of the Court.

Each courtier card is worth up to 3 influence markers which the player places on the board from his personal supply. Instead of playing on the board, the player can choose to add 3 influence markers to his personal supply from the general supply.

The wild influence cards are valued at 2 influence markers.

When placing influence markers on the board, the player places markers starting on the character on the card. The wild influence cards allows the player to start at any courtier.

The round ends after all but one of the influence cards are played. Then the winner of each of board tile is determined and receives their reward.

Play lasts for four rounds. The winner is the one with the most victory points after four rounds.

Observations

I like Rudiger Dorn’s games and this one is no exception.

Louis XIV can easily be played in about 45-60 minutes by experienced players and provides a lot of enjoyment. Setup time for this game may take a couple of minutes or so but it is worth it.

In the game play above, I didn’t mention anything about Louis XIV but his presence is very subtle. You see, Louis visits one of the 4 courtiers closest to him every round and grants a gift to the winner of that courtier.

This provides yet another way to obtain tokens to fulfill mission cards.

So you see, there are quite a number of things that a player has to keep track of in this game. And that is something that I find quite enjoyable.

I have played this game with all the player counts and I enjoy each one of them. A 2 player game is great fun and a 4 player game provides much angst.

What a delight!

Happy gaming.