First Play: Copycat....

The hobby gaming obsession has exploded so much so over the past decade that many games have come out with themes and mechanics that reflect humourously on hobby gaming itself.  And there's so many of us suckers now that these games are even finding a market - The Boardgamegeek Game and Cleopatra's Caboose are prime examples.  Copycat, by the brilliant and weird Friedemann Friese of Power Grid and Black Friday fame, is another prime example of this.  Friese decided he wanted to steal mechanics from the top-rated games on BGG and put 'em together to create something new.  Of course, this is a not-so-subtle commentary on the endless variations of modern game mechanics that we're seeing over and over - worker placement, deck-building, you name it.  So Copycat steals the worker-placement/action card reveal from Agricola, the deck-building and coins for buying from Dominion, increasing values of unused actions from Puerto Rico, and the sliding card row from Through the Ages as well as tossing a few more clever ideas into the mix.

Red cards are useless, you know, like licenses and degrees and stuff

And I daresay that my first play of this was rather magnificent!  Once the fog had lifted from trying to parse yet another confusing Friese and Rio Grande ruleset, we really started to get into the game.  Not knowing what I was doing and not knowing that money would be really hard to come by later, I tried my classic "Chapel" strategy from Dominion of burning down my deck and then building it back up.  Unfortunately I used more actions burning my deck then building it and so had to play catch up in the end game.  But man was this fun.  Long-term strategy from the deck-building and deep challenging tactical play every round from the action spaces and the cards on hand.  And a devious decision every round for turn order - which card to give up from a hand of only 5?  Delicious.  I'm looking forward to my next play of this, I must say, and seriously considering owning a copy myself.  Highly recommended, especially if Agricola and Dominion float your boat.

And you don't have to feed your family!!!!

Action spaces and "campaign workers"

UPDATE:  2-player game is way too easy.  Fun but devoid of tension.  4-player is excellent and illustrates the many ways to scoop points.  But for length of play I think 3 players is just right. 

On The Horizon: the latest Friedemann Friese project...

The ever-strange and creative inventor of Power Grid and Black Friday has decided to create a board game using mechanics from the top ten board games of all time on BGG.  That would include the worker placement from Agricola, the card purchase from Through The Ages, deck-building from Dominion, the card-drafting from 7 Wonders, turn-order from (you guessed it!) Power Grid, and the action selection from Puerto Rico.  Huh.  Okay, I'll bite.  I'm interested to see how all this comes together....

You can see him talk about his schizophrenic design here.

The drunk and the frustrated gamer...

So I'll readily admit that I usually lose most games we play. You'd think being the token mathematician and board game collector/obsesser, that I'd do a bit better. I like to reason it away by saying that I'm always teaching the rules and helping out new players but that only explains about half the games. Like Puerto Rico two nights ago, a game with almost no luck of which I was the only one who had played the game, and I come in last... by a lot.


Last night, with Dominion, it was even more frustrating. Our Romanian friend proceeded to get hosed on Kahlua and started winning. In fact, this is rather common. His luck and skill seem to be inversely proportional to his level of sobriety. Nothing like a drunk, gloating eastern European to make that loss taste even more sour....


Latest Dominion Strategy: Get drunk and be Romanian. GRRRRRR....