I seem to be taking a lot of pictures of Cobweb lately. This is her drinking out of a FORBIDDEN MUG, because she's been getting spoiled these last couple of months.



Meanwhile, I frequently try and take pictures of Lucy, because she's so hard to photograph. This was a rare one that showed her with contrast:



Poor Munchkin has not gotten her picture taken lately. But she gets plenty of attention, I swear. Look, there she is in the userpic!

And so we finally come to the most recently released Alea game--and also the one I've played the most this year--Witch's Brew. It's a return to a lighter, filler sort of game, and I think the most successful one in that category other than the ground-breaking San Juan.

Witch's Brew is a pretty unique game that I'd ultimately have to say depends on role-selection, but with a lot of quirks. Basically there are 12 different actions (roles) in the game. Each round you select 5 that you're going to try to take. Then it turns into a bluffing game. One player selects a role. Then each other player who has the role either takes over the main power or else accepts a subsidiary (and less powerful) power. The catch with taking the main power is that one of the other players may then take it from you, if there's anyone who hasn't declared yet; you also have to go first next turn, which is almost always bad, since you have to try to take the main power, and usually don't get to do it.

The role cards ultimately let you engage in some resource management as you collect three different resources and try to turn those into victory points.

A couple of the players that I last played Witch's Brew with said they really enjoy the game because of the gotcha! factor--the way you can smugly grab a power from someone ahead of you after they thought they had it made. I rarely see a game with as much thrill of victory and agony of defeat as this one unless it's a dice game. And given that I think that dice games can be some of the most adrenaline-boosting and stomach-dropping games around, that's high praise.

There's a lot of other stuff that's good in the game. Though the results of an individual turn can be chaotic, you can still do lots of strategic planning before each round, and some of it will usually pay off. The chaos factor is decreased by the fact that a player's current set of resources can tell you a lot about what they're going to do. There's also some opportunity for nice brinkmanship, as you will probably occasionally choose cards that you can't immediately use in the hope that you'll be ready by the time someone tries to call the role.

Overall, Witch's Brew is a game that's fast but not necessarily light.

L1: Ra. A+. (Plays: 15) [ Read my Review ]
L2: Chinatown. B-. (Plays: 1)
L3: Taj Mahal. A+. (Plays: 7)
L4: Princes of Florence. A. (Plays: 4+) [ Read my Review ]
L5: Adel Verpflichtet. B. (Plays: 2) [ Read my Review ]
L6: Traders of Genoa. A+. (Plays: 3+) [ Read my Review ]
S1: Wyatt Earp. B+ (Plays: 2)
S2: Royal Turf. A- (Plays: 6)
L7: Puerto Rico. A+ (Plays: 11) [ Read my Review ]
S3: Die Sieben Weisen. C (Plays: 1)
S4: Edel, Stein & Reich. B- (Plays: 1) [ Read my Basari Review ]
L8: Mammoth Hunters. B+ (Plays: 5) [ Read my Review. ]
S5: San Juan. A+ (Plays: 32) [ Read my Review; plus Glory to Rome review. ]
L9: Fifth Avenue. C- (Plays: 3+)
M1: Louis XIV. B+ (Plays: 7) [ Read my Review ]
M2: Palazzo. B- (Plays: 6)
L10: Rum & Pirates. B (Plays: 3)
M3: Augsburg 1520. B+ (Plays: 2)
L11: Notre Dame. A (Plays: 6)
L12: In the Year of the Dragon. A (Plays: 5)
M4: Witch's Brew. A (Plays: 5)

And that concludes my analysis of all of the Alea games published to date. Over the last four publications, from Augsburg 1520 to the present, I think that the series has reached a Renaissance, and I hope it continues (although I wish there was more variety of designers among the big box games, even given the fact that I've generally like Feld's games).

If Alea Iacta Est makes it out this year (and who knows with Rio Grande!), I'll surely add it to the series, and I also plan to assess all the supplements when the Treasure Chest comes out. For now, though, keep your eyes peeled over at BGN, where I plan to publish a synopsis of some of my Alea thoughts on Thanksgiving.

Biking. As usual, I was bummed when daylight savings time ended three weeks ago. Immediately my rides to EndGame on Wednesdays and my rides home on Saturdays changed from daylight to nighttime.

The first week was the worst because people were driving like idiots who had never driven at night before. That first Wednesday after the change, I had about six cars try and pull into me when I biked to EndGame. None came even close, mind you, and I might not have noticed all of them if I weren't a careful bicyclist, but since I am I was certainly aware of all of those people pulling up toward me, then stopping as they tried to make turns or merge onto the street.

These last couple of rides it's been better, but colder. Mind you, we don't get real cold here in Berkeley, but on Saturday it was 53F when I biked in to EndGame a bit after noon and 52F when I biked home around 7. Bleh. Wish I was in Hawaii.

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Parasites. My near-miss criminal year seems to have continued. Friday afternoon we had two middle-aged black guys case our house. They knocked on the door, and Kimberly went to get it. One of them was right up next to the door, the other further back, and the first says to the second, "Someone's home!" and they both took off. They were apparently carrying one bulging duffle bag too.

We had police out here trying to hunt them down within a few minutes of Kimberly reporting the activity, which is encouraging. I don't think they caught them though, because first they headed off in the direction where the criminals had headed, then went in the opposite direction.

We've been aware of a couple of other break-ins since we've moved in, usually due to open, ground-floor windows apparently, though our next-door neighbor got broken into a couple of years back, probably because his house is set way back from the street, behind other houses. I was surprised someone considered breaking into our house, which is pretty much straight on the street, without it being a crime of opportunity.

(Though to me it seems entirely insane to rob houses so near the college at all, where it's impossible to predict when people might be coming or going; I'd personally take a more suburban area any time.)

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Cats. Cobweb continues to do well. As far as we can tell she stopped losing weight a month and a half ago or so. Mind you, we haven't had her weighed since, but at 8.5# she didn't have much to lose, so we figured she'd be gone in a week or two. We guess that the steroids must have stopped or slowed down the loss for now.

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Savage Tide. Yesterday was the fiftieth session of my D&D3.5 Savage Tide campaign. It's been over a decade since I did that much GMing (back at old Ars Magica campaigns, before we lost Bill & Chris V. from the group).

The Savage Tide game is still going strong; every once in a while Donald tells me how me enjoys it. Strong kudos to the people over at Paizo for creating a coherent and fun campaign. At minimum we have 10 more sessions. My actual guess is more like 15, but it'll depend on how many sidequests I run; at the moment the players are getting pretty close to the levels they should actually be at, with a couple of level 17s hit yesterday (and level 18 being the benchmark for the conclusion of session #51, I'd guess).

My Savage Tide AP of all 50 sessions is over at RPGnet.

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Books. The rest of the weekend has been pretty laid back. I spent part of the afternoon sitting on the love seat in the sunroom enjoying some actual sunshine. As is my wont I flipped between chapters in a few different books: Soldier, Ask Not (the third book of George R. Dickson's Childe Cycle), Diaspora (a fun FATE-based SF RPG, that I hope will present my Traveller game in a different perspective), Pewter, Murder, and Loaded Dice (a coming-of-age novel centered on roleplayers which has exceeded my expectations; I'll have a review up on the 2nd), and WildCATS (specifically the Alan Moore issues, of which the first graphic novel at least is very good).

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Computer Games. I also got my shelf of computer games in order today. I'll be off Wednesday-Sunday next week, and I plan to spend some veg out time. I expect I'm going to reinstall either Neverwinter Nights or Disciples Gold II to help in that regard.

No, I don't need new computer games. It's rare that I buy more than 1 or 2 in a year, and even rarer that they actually be new releases.

(Says the guy who's been spending the last two months writing a computer game for the iPhone.)

In the Year of the Dragon is currently the last big-box Alea game, and I think it really stands up to the most strategic of the series.

The object of In the Year of the Dragon is to earn the most victory points while carefully managing a number of resources and preparing for upcoming disasters. There are four different disasters: Mongol invasions which require warriors, disease which requires healers, famine which requires rice growers to have made rice, and Imperial taxes which require money. In addition, there's one opportunity: a festival, which gives bonus VPs to people who have fireworks.

Throughout the game, you're thus trying to balance which workers you acquire and how you use them. Money is further important because you might need it to buy VP generators or to buy an action that someone used ahead of you. Another thing that you have to keep constantly in mind is the size of your palaces, because if you don't have room for new workers you have to toss old ones out onto the street. Finally, the type of workers you hire can have a big effect on when you go in the round, which is another thing you have to constantly keep track of.

Calling In the Year of the Dragon a resource-management game seems to understate the gameplay, because the various resources that you have to manage (workers, palaces, victory points, money, rice, fireworks, and the worker track) are so different that this is clearly not just a game of figuring out when you need indigo and when you need coffee. It's a complex web of interrelations and that's what makes it an interesting game.

In the Year of the Dragon is also a scarcity game, meaning that you constantly feel like you're falling behind the curve on demands that are slowly overwhelming you. This is the second time that author Feld used this style of play, with the first being the rats of Notre Dame. Here it (as laid out by the disasters) is much more important, however--really, the core of the game.

I think In the Year of the Dragon is a good game because it's high strategy, low randomness, and it allows for a lot of forward thinking. Mind you, I don't always like that in a game, but when I do this is an excellent choice because it's still pretty fresh and original. It's also very tight and there are a few different paths to victory:

Do you try and stay totally clear of disasters, or do you sometimes give up resources as the lesser of two evils? Do you cycle characters or try and keep your full complement? Do you earn your points with scribes who require you to take a book action or do you pick up VP generators early on and just try and tread water while they do their work? Do you try and push to the start of the worker track or do you accept that you'll be last and take lots of excellent workers with that understanding?

I'm won with multiple strategies, which is my usual mark of a good strategy game.

L1: Ra. A+. (Plays: 15) [ Read my Review ]
L2: Chinatown. B-. (Plays: 1)
L3: Taj Mahal. A+. (Plays: 7)
L4: Princes of Florence. A. (Plays: 4+) [ Read my Review ]
L5: Adel Verpflichtet. B. (Plays: 2) [ Read my Review ]
L6: Traders of Genoa. A+. (Plays: 3+) [ Read my Review ]
S1: Wyatt Earp. B+ (Plays: 2)
S2: Royal Turf. A- (Plays: 6)
L7: Puerto Rico. A+ (Plays: 11) [ Read my Review ]
S3: Die Sieben Weisen. C (Plays: 1)
S4: Edel, Stein & Reich. B- (Plays: 1) [ Read my Basari Review ]
L8: Mammoth Hunters. B+ (Plays: 5) [ Read my Review. ]
S5: San Juan. A+ (Plays: 32) [ Read my Review; plus Glory to Rome review. ]
L9: Fifth Avenue. C- (Plays: 3+)
M1: Louis XIV. B+ (Plays: 7) [ Read my Review ]
M2: Palazzo. B- (Plays: 6)
L10: Rum & Pirates. B (Plays: 3)
M3: Augsburg 1520. B+ (Plays: 2)
L11: Notre Dame. A (Plays: 6)
L12: In the Year of the Dragon. A (Plays: 5)

I'm going to close out by noting that I've found an interesting correlation between Notre Dame and In the Year of the Dragon. I know a number of players who love one and hate the other and vice-versa, though they're both games by the same publisher and same designer, put out very near each other and both using scarcity mechanics. I can understand the difference: Notre Dame feels a lot lighter and like you have more control while In the Year of the Dragon is more strategic and more demanding. Indeed, though I've rated both equally well, I enjoy Notre Dame much more (though I seem better at In the Year of the Dragon).

Just finished The Day of the Muses, which is the fourth SPRQ book by John Roberts.

It was a very nice change-of-pace book because it took place in Alexandria (Egypt) rather than Rome. Decius still had his typical problems of facing disbelief or indifference from his Romans peers, but at least the Egyptian King was somewhat more interested (while not drunk). Mind you, the main villain got away, as ever, because of political influence--but this time Decius assures us that in 12 years' time he's going to get his (because Decius writes from the future, sometime after the fall of the Republic).

It was also neat to see this series move entirely into the time of Rome (the TV series) as we hear that the Triumvirate is sectioning up the world over on the other side of the Mediterranean.

Another fun little read.

Edit: Figured I was done with SPQR for the year, but I see that the next chronological story is a short story, so I've ordered Classical Whodunnits through LINK+ before I forget. I'll have to read about the other authors within, when I get it, and see if any are worth reading ...

Today the odometer on my bike hit 1000 miles. Well, it hit 999.73, and I did honestly consider riding an additional block or two and back to get it to the magic 1000 (or, as I expect 000). But I figured it was close enough. I think the actual number is up to 10% higher, given a combination of forgetting to attach my odometer at various times, having the sensor occasionally get knocked out of whack, and the being pretty sure it undercounts by a bit.

I think got it just after Thanksgiving last year, as I believe I didn't have it for my first ride of the Iron Horse Trail. So, that's a 50-week count, or about 20 miles a week. Not bad. I suspect the next 1000 miles will take a little less, as I'm now riding 20 miles most weeks just to EndGame and back (though I've also been doing fewer bike adventures).

Here's some of the highlights of my last 50 weeks:

• The Iron Horse Trail. This is a 25 mile rails-to-trails multiuse path that runs from Dublin to Concord. That's over in Contra Costa County, and I find the landscape there to be entirely beautiful (well, except maybe for San Ramon). It's also nice having such a long and protected trail.
  
• The Lafayette-Moraga Trail. Also over the hills in CCC, this one runs south from the Lafayette BART station up into gradually ascending hills. Highlights include the fact that: I've ridden this trail with Kimberly; it's got a waterfall off to one side (in the rainy season); and it climbs gradually up into the hills. I've also never seen the end of the trail, because the hills have made K. call a halt each of our two trips out, so it's a mystery that's not yet entirely explored.
  
• The Bay Trail. I've ridden this from Fremont in the South to Point Pinole in the North, pretty much the entirety of the East Bay portion of the Trail. The actual trail isn't nearly as nice as either of those Contra Costa Trails because it rarely has more than a few continuous miles at a time. There are still chunks which are totally unavailable as well as chunks that are dirt for several miles. But riding next to the Bay is gorgeous. I think the best section is from Point Isabel to the Richmond Inner Harbor which is several continuous miles, all paved, and includes paths through beautiful wetlands.
  

As I said, I've been bike adventuring less and that's because I've gotten to everywhere easy. Almost anything else takes BART. However, here's some things I'd like to do within the next 1000 miles:

• The Lafayette-Moraga Trail. And finish it.
  
• The Contra-Costa Canal Trail. (Or something like that.) This is a trail that runs northwest and northeast, bisected by the Iron Horse Trail. I've ridden the northeastern leg, but not the northwestern one.
  
• Over the Bridge. There's a bridge north of Concord that was just opened up to bicyclists. I'd like to ride over it and into the lands beyond.
  
• East from Point Pinole. This is the natural extension of my current Bay Trail journeys, but it includes both lots of unfinished trail and lots of hilly terrain, so it'll be a real test.
  
• Around the South of the Bay. From Fremont south and around, maybe ending at some random Caltrain station. If I take it early, I can head north up the peninsula until I'm tuckered out.
  
• To Mom's House. I've heard several times that there are some nice creek-adjacent trails heading down into south San Jose.
  

We'll see when I get up the Umph to get to some of these. Something at Thanksgiving, I'm certain.

Busy day. Went down to San Jose and back in celebration of my mom's birthday. Most of the day was spent just hanging around her backyard, talking to Jason, Lisa, Rob, my Mom, Bob, and Mike T. (and his family). It made me remember how nice it is just to have a backyard--if someone else is taking care of it that is--and of course the conversation was all good too.

Even got to play a game of ping pong with Mike. I used to love that game when I was young, but I haven't played since I moved out of the dorms, after my first year of Berkeley. Mike, also out of practice, beat me, but we were both getting the feeling that we were rediscovering the ping-pong muscles as we played.

Not a lot beyond that. We heard that Jason and Lisa quite liked the Ticket to Ride that we got them for their wedding, which is great. We'd known that they'd played a lot of Monopoly and such, so I wanted to introduce them to a Euro. I also expect that I'm going to join Mike T. for a bike ride before November is out, if we can make our schedules coincide. We'll see. It's been a busy couple of weeks, so next weekend is officially off (other than regular gaming, of course).

We got home earlier than I'd guessed, and I was considering sitting down to work on a review (Traveller Book 3: Scout) or my next Signs & Portents article ("Gods of the Goblins"), but I'm just too burned. Will sit down to read instead.

Had a game of Arkham Horror scheduled as our saturday gaming today, in honor of the holiday. We also played with the (newish) expansion, Innsmouth Horror.

After about 5.5 hours of failing to get sufficient gates closed down (in large part due to an inability to seal gates for a couple of hours), we finally had Rhan-Tegoth awaken, with us needing 17*6 = 102 combat successes to kill him. Much to our surprise, we did, primarily because he could only wound one investigator each turn. I think 3 of the 6 investigators got killed before he was taken down. I'm never quite sure whether a battle with an Ancient One is a climax or an anti-climax in a game of Arkham Horror.

Still, nice color and fun wanderings about the town, as always.

Though we had the Innsmouth Horror expansion out, we never went to Innsmouth, because not a single gate or monster appeared there the entire time. That's a problem I've had with the other city expansions in the past. Ah well. We still used new investigators, new Arkham encounters, a new GOO, and probably some other assorted stuff from the set.

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On my way home from EndGame, I swung into our neighborhood back at Ashby, and I was amazed how many kids there were trick or treating. We've had years where we kept the lights blazing and not a single trick-or-treater showed up. Today, while she was waiting for me to get home, Kimberly said she had two groups knock (but we had no candy, alas, due to those kidless years).

It made me wonder if there's a change in the atmosphere of the country generally. For years Bush and his corrupt cronies tried to bury us in FEAR, telling us that everything was bad and everyone wanted to kill us (no surprise, with that jackass as our leader). Now we instead have a new President pushing hope.

Could that be the change that has parents willing to escort their kids around the neighborhood again?

Or it could just be a fluke or the fact that it was a Saturday this year. I dunno.

Had a lost weekend, in which I pretty much sat at home and read. Since I've been a'home for about a week now, everything feels foggy and lazy.

One of the benefitors of that was The Shape of Dread (1989), the next book in the Sharon McCone series, which I picked up from the library on Saturday and had largely finished by Sunday night.

Muller continues to be an excellent mystery writer. This one was a no-body murder case where she got to have a lot of fun exploring whether everyone even was correct about who had been murdered. Some of McCone's early bad-girl stylings are gone, since she actually keeps in touch with the authorities and ask for permission to stay on the case in this work. It seems like Muller & hubby had their individual sleuths triangulating, with McCone getting more law-abiding and Nameless less law-abiding, as time went on.

In any case, another good read. Muller is probably at the top of the list of the older series I'm reading right now--the perfect author if I'm down, sick, or need something quiet and simple to read.

Been more than a week since I wrote last ...

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Sick. I've been sick the last several days. Fortunately I dosed myself with a good amount of zinc on the first two days when I thought I was getting sick, and it seems to have helped. Monday I wasn't sure, Tuesday just my throat was raw (but very raw), Wednesday I could barely breathe & had troubles thinking, and today I'm feeling relatively good other than a persistent cough that has me ready to rip my throat out. Hopefully it'll keep trending upward (though I'm also continuing to feel too warm today).

I canceled my usual Wednesday & Thursday gaming nights due to the sickness. I'm a strong believer in not heading out to spread your illness and wish to hell that more people felt the same. It's so damned irresponsible to be the plague carrier. After canceling those events, I was amazed by how the week really opened up before me. I'll have to remember that I don't need to do my board game nights every Wednesday & Thursday.

I haven't made a decision on Saturday gaming yet. I'll make that call tomorrow when I decide if (1) I still feel like I might be infectious -and- (2) I think I'm going to have enough voice to talk for four or five hours. Right now the answer to those questions would be "yes" and "no", but we'll see what a difference a day makes.

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Cats. Cobweb is still about the house. Kimberly and I both think that she looks gaunter than ever, and that certainly can't keep up for much longer. However for the last few weeks she has continued to act very happy and intelligent and active.

Her sickness has of course been a big wrench in our normal pattern of life. Seeing her around every day, and knowing that she won't be here much longer, is bittersweet. Sometimes I feel sad for her for obvious reasons and sometimes I feel happy that we've had her for so long (and three or four weeks feels very long) after we knew that she was terminally ill, that we've really be able to lavish attention and love on her in that time period. By my calculations, we've given her about two and a half years' worth of wet food, which we used to give to her about once a week as a special treat, in the last three or four weeks.

That wet food is the other wrench in our schedule, because Kimberly takes some time out every afternoon to give her wet food away from the other cats, and I do the same every night. The other cats get the scraps when she's done.

Of course this all means that the other cats are wise to the fact that she's getting wet food and they're not and they're always swarming about as a result. So, rather than making this into an obligation, I've made it into a fun game. I try and get up to my office (where I usually feed Cobweb), with Cobweb right behind me, and with the other cats nowhere in sight. It's very challenging.

Fortunately, Cobweb is much smarter than the other cats (as this has certainly proven). She has no doubt that wet food is coming, while the other cats get distracted. It often takes a little bit of slight of hand and a little bit of patience to trick them. Sometimes I just have to outrun the other cats, but Cobweb also stays well ahead when I take that route.

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Cards. My Money iPhone card game is coming well. I think I should be able to play a full game against dumb AIs in an interface that needs some polishing tomorrow. Which is very exciting. That'll give me another week to complete polishing. It's less than I'd like, but I'm happy to have a deadline really pushing me.

(I'll do some more polishing after I send the first release draft out to Knizia.)

Part of the reason that the program has taken a while is that I'm working very hard to create a clean, abstract structure for card games. I'm really proud of the results. There are almost no corners that I've cut*. I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to use my core structure for both the cards *and* the display table for my next game and cut at least half the time off the development.

Which is very exciting, as it's what I've been planning for.

(Though I guarantee that I'll also discover areas where I didn't think I'd cut corners, but where the other game is different enough that my level of abstraction fails. But those points should get fewer as I develop more games with the engine.)

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* I'm aware of one, but I plan to clean it up tomorrow, as I figured out a better abstraction this afternoon when I walked out to Skotos' mailbox and back.