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Essen 2005 Report: Sunday, October 16, 2005 (Day 4)
Posted on Oct. 17, 2005 by Rick Thornquist
By Rick Thornquist
Sunday, October 16, 2005
 Today is Sunday, the last day of the fair. Today will be a quieter day, at least as far as my game playing is concerned (I still expect the fair to be crowded). Today I'll just play a couple of games, do some shopping, and say my goodbyes.
I arrived at the fair a hour before it opened which was a good plan - it enabled me to do my shopping without having to battle the crowds. I ran from booth to booth, picking up a number of games that I haven't had a chance to play yet. These games had gotten some good buzz, so I sprang for them. Among them were Das Ende des Triumvirates, Il Principe, Kaivai and a few others.
I my travels yesterday, I had come across designer Mario Papini at the ZuGames booth where he was showing his game Siena. We made a plan to get together and play the game this morning when the fair opened. I finished up my shopping and headed to the ZuGames booth to play the game.
 Siena
All right, there's a lot I want to say about this game so fasten your seat belts!
First of all, what the game is about. The theme of the game is based on a fresco painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti which shows the town of Siena and it's outlying areas. The fresco shows various buildings in the town, the town wall, and the fields outside the town. The fresco takes up most of the board and much of the action takes place there.
The players start as peasants, planting and selling crops, before becoming merchants, trading in cloth and spices. The final step is to become a banker where you visit the buildings of the town.
Each round is made up of two main phases. In the first phase, a set of cards are placed face-up on the table and players take turns drafting them (some cards are also auctioned). Then each player in turn may play his cards. The cards do many different things, and their function may depend on whether you are currently a peasant, merchant or banker.
There are a number of different ways to get victory points - by acquiring certain cards, by building sections of a tower in the city, and some other things. The game ends after a set number of turns or when another game ending condition is met. The victory points are totaled up and the player with the most wins.
That's a very superficial explanation - the game is actually fairly involved. Many of the cards have special powers and multiple uses. Also, the play is quite different when you are the banker as opposed to being a peasant or merchant. There is are a lot of different things at work here - this is very much a gamer game
Though the game was explained to me, I do have to say something about the English rules (which I had a copy of before the fair). I found them a really, really tough to read. This game is quite involved and the rules make the learning process much more difficult than it should be by being too terse and unclear. You can learn the game from the rules, but it'll be a tough row to hoe.
The theme of the game fits very well and the idea of basing it on the fresco is very innovative. The cards show sections of the people in the fresco and the card actions are appropriate to the people depicted. There is a lot of theme in this game.
Where the idea of using the fresco is great, my verdict on the execution of the idea is mixed. The fresco on the board shows certain locations, some of which are used to hold various pieces throughout the game. However, there isn't any delineation of the locations nor are there any graphics or text saying which area does what. I understand that the designer didn't want to mess up the fresco with other graphics or text, but the lack of delineation or any graphics or text makes the game much tougher to learn - you have to memorize, for example, what all of the buildings do. That makes for more of a learning curve then there should be.
Also problematic are the cards. Many cards have special functions and all of these cards have no explanation on them whatsoever as to what they do - all they have is a picture from the fresco and a name. This again forces you to memorize their functions, making the game even more difficult to learn (just imagine playing Puerto Rico for the first time with no text on all the buildings, just pictures).
Making things worse is the fact that there is no player aid included in the game that explains the buildings or the cards. Z-Man games has made available on the Internet a player aid that does explain the cards - this is absolutely a necessity unless you want to keep passing around the rulebook the whole game.
The game itself is a bit on the fiddly side. Each special card has some special power, with some having more than one. There are a fair number of little rules here and there. All these rules are meant to carry the theme, which they do well, but the lack of graphic design and player aids mean that learning them is a bit of an uphill battle.
With all that being said, how is the game itself? Actually, I think it's quite good. The integration of the fresco into the theme and gameplay is very neat and there looks to be a lot of interesting strategy. I can't say for sure, as my first game was more of a learning game than anything else, but I saw enough there to entice me to play it again. We may have a hidden gem here, but be aware that it may take you some time and effort to uncover it.
 Kings Progress
After Siena, it was time for more shopping and a quick trip back to the hotel to drop off my booty. When I came back I headed to the JKLM Games booth to play one of their new games - Kings Progress. I played one round of what is normally a three round game.
Kings Progress is a medium weight game that has shades of Union Pacific. To start, a number of different colored courtier pawns are place in their home castles on the board (the courtiers don't belong to any particular player). The castles are connected by roads and one of the castles is designated as the king's castle. The idea is that you try to gain influence over the courtiers and move them to the king's castle.
To gain control over the courtiers you have to pick up and play influence cards (the influence cards are the same colors as the courtiers). You can pick them up from an open display or three cards. The cards aren't active, though, until you play them in front of you - as many as you want of one type or two different ones (this is where the Union Pacific part comes in).
If you have the most influence cards of a courtier, you get a marker which gives you a special power. The player who has the second most also gets a marker, but no power. Once a courtier reaches a castle, some gift cards are given out - two to the player with the most influence and one to the player that is second.
Once a certain number of courtiers have made it to the castle, the round ends and points are scored.
The game struck me as not being extraordinarily innovative - we've seen mechanics like this before - but the gameplay came together nicely. I'll need a full game to form a solid opinion, but as of now I think it's a pretty good game.
 Ca$h Trap
I did make a stop to see one more game - Ca$h Trap. This is a new game from a British game company - New Century Games. The designer Debbie Keigan took some time to explain to me how the game works.
This is very much a family game. The board shows a grid and each player has a set of money bag pawns that start on one side of the board. The objective is to get your money bags to the opposite side of the board and the first player to do that wins.
The game is played by means of cards. The cards allows you different actions, moving in different ways, putting in 'Cash Traps' which are blockers, and some other moves. Because all players are sharing the same board, you have to maneuvering around you opponents (and any blockers) to get to the opposite side to win.
This is strictly family game fare, but from the explanation, it sounded fun.
Over the past few days I had heard that there was a life-sized Foosball game that was being played in the kid's area. Now I normally stay as far away from children as possible, but everybody said it was hilarious and I had to check it out. I did finally see it and it was quite funny (see the picture below). I also took in the rest of the huge kids area which had lots of big things for the kiddies to do.
My last major stop was the Heidelberger booth. Anyone who's been to Essen knows about Heidelberger - they are a retailer that has a very small booth that is pile high with games with fabulous prices. The booth is always jammed and going through it is like going on a ride.
Seeing all the deals can be either exhilarating or heartbreaking depending on whether you have the games or not. San Marco for 7.50 Euros - arg, I already have it! I saw so many games I could have bought for a quarter of what I paid here. D'oh!
I did pick up a few deals - a couple of copies of the Kosmos two player game Avalon for 5 Euro each (a hard to find game in these parts and good prize table material) plus two copies of Schotten Totten for 5 Euro each. I also picked up a copy of The Nacho Incident, the new game from Eight Foot Llama.
With all my shopping done and the show closing, it was time to say goodbye. Just after the show closed I took a walk past the Fairplay booth to get a final picture of their tote board.
I headed back to the hotel and spent the evening relaxing and getting packed for the early flight the next morning.
And that's it! Later today or tomorrow I'll post a wrap-up of the festivities. Stay tuned!
| Pictures - Click the picture for a larger version |  | Games played - A large version of Siena |  | Siena designer Mario Papini and his pal Ralph Anderson |  | Kings Progress |  | Some Kings Progress cards |  | Some publisher's booths- Grapac Japan |  | Gigantoskop |  | New Century Games |  | Debbie Keigan and her game Ca$h Trap |  | Ca$h Trap |  | In the kids area - life-sized Foosball |  | The 395.00 € Game - Maxi Zicke Zacke Hühnerkacke - unfortunately, no one was playing at the time |  | In the kids area |  | In the kids area |  | In the kids area |  | In the kids area |  | A shot of the Fairplay poll results shortly after the fair closed |
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Email GameWire's editor, Rick Thornquist, at gamewire@gamefest.com.
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