FallCon - A Cornucopia of Gaming

We've got HUGE news for our Canadian Game Design Award Semi-Finalists!

As was the case last year, the winner of the 2011 CGDA will receive a $200 cash prize from FallCon and a $500 cash advance from Valley Games, upon signing a publishing contract. Oh and a sweet, one-of-a-kind commemoration plaque. Tough to beat that, right? Well, thanks to the kind folks at Panda Game Manufacturing we now have additional prizes to announce. 

For those of you who don't know, Panda GM is a Canadian company that provides overseas printing and sourcing services for publishers such as Valley Games, Z-Man Games, and Tasty Minstrel. Some of their recent projects include Merchants & Marauders, Ninjato, Belfort, Stronghold, and Survive. All incredibly beautiful productions. Well Panda GM has generously agreed to supplement the cash prize by an additional $200. Not only that, they have also agreed to offer a $500 manufacturing discount to the winner regardless of the publisher. The combined support from FallCon, Valley Games and Panda Game Manufacturing amounts to a $1400 windfall for the deserving winner.

How many of you will be working on your 2012 Canadian Game Design entries now? :)

Jasen

Name: London
Designer: Martin Wallace
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 90 minutes
MSRP: $65.99 CDN
Link to Rules

Synopsis: Rebuild the city of London after the Great Fire of 1666!  You will take control of the various aspects of the city (economic, political, scientific) to try to build the most efficient and profitable city you can without causing too much poverty!  The person who can do this the best will be declared the victor. 

This card-driven game by Martin Wallace allows players to recreate the rebuilding of the London by using an elegant card driven mechanic which Tim has already covered marvelously in his teaching tutorial. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend giving it a look.

London is surprisingly thematic, approachable and easy to learn, especially considering Wallace's propensity for designing deep games with somewhat obtuse rulesets. Not so with this gem. And yet, there's an amazing amount of depth to the game. While you're constantly balancing the need to get cards, or play down buildings, or run your city to generate points and money, you always get a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Ultimately, that's the hook that keeps me coming back for more: trying to get my city to run as efficiently as I can.  

As an introduction to mid-weight games, and to Martin Wallace games in general, I would highly recommend London. It's a game I'm always willing to play and definitely in my Top 5 from 2010.

Jasen 

Name: Troyes
Designer:Sébastien Dujardin, Xavier Georges, Alain Orban
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 90 minutes
MSRP: $55.00 CDN
Link to Rules

Synopsis: Troyes is a strategy game in which you represent a rich family from Troyes, a grand city in the Champagne region of France. You use your influence to recruit and supervise individuals from three realms of expertise: military (associated with the color red), religious (white), and civil (yellow). Each player manages a common pool of workers (represented by colored dice) to determine which activities and events they wish to utilize to improve their status in the town.

Can you manage your city better than your opponents?

This 2010 release from Z-Man Games is one of the new breed of dice pool/worker placement games. Each turn, players roll a group of dice based upon workers they have previously placed in the various buildings depicted on the board. These dice can then be used on various activities and events that come out during the round to garner additional influence and victory points. As these events and activities are drawn from a large set of cards, the game is highly replayable. An additional novelty in this particular worker placement game is that you can hire your opponents' workers by paying them with your hard earned coin. This ups the tension and interaction in the game dramatically.

Troyes is clearly a descendant of worker placement games like Caylus and dice games like Kingsburg. Like these games, they appeal to more seasoned gamers. I've found the game really begins to shine after 3 or 4 plays, as one begins to appreciate the interaction between activity cards and the possibilities with dice manipulation. I personally quite like Troyes and believe it is in the top tier of gamer games of the last year.

Darren