Paul owen games

We look forward to seeing the production version when it comes out. A quick summary of yesterday's events:. I won largely due to die luck; for a good stretch of the game, I couldn't roll lower than '4,' and he couldn't roll higher than '3. I won that engagement as well, partly due to basic naval gunnery tactics concentrate both broadsides on a single target, take down one mast, then switch fire to hull and blast away and partly due again to die luck although not as egregious as in the frigate battle.

I was by no means unscathed; through effective use of chain shot, Rob completely demasted my gun SOL. At one point he tried to perform an end run by pulling his rear SOL out of line and upwind, away from my fire, then rigging full sails, and attempting to sprint around the far side of his lead SOL to turn down wind and attempt to set up a rake on my rear SOL. I was pretty tight with my line and maneuver, though, and managed to re-form my line along the wind in such a way that instead of firing on my rear, he faced a combined broadside as he made his attempted raking maneuver.

Meanwhile, I was able to keep up the barrage on his lead SOL until she struck her colors. At that point Rob felt that he was unlikely to pull out a win particularly under tournament time constraints , and he conceded the battle. There were few children present at the time, and those were all engaged in other games already. The adults seemed interested in learning a new family game, and it went over very well.

I'm optimistic they will look for it in the Vendors Room tomorrow, when Worthington Games will have it available for sale. I competed in the 7 Wonders tournament at a very fun table of seven people, including Stefan from Montreal.

I came in a very close second place points over two games. There were 25 tables and 42 seats in the quarterfinal, so my strong second-place finish qualified me for the quarterfinal.

Unfortunately, there I had my worst showing ever, with 36 points and a solid lock on seventh place. So that was it for 7W for me this convention. It was a rich and fascinating session that ran so long that I skipped the Agricola heat scheduled for later in the evening.

After my friends Keith F. Keith won our game, a victory I think I could have snatched from him if I'd properly played the assassin against the architect rather than the warlord , which would have prevented him from building his eighth district and getting sufficient bonus points to outscore me. Games that even the in-laws can play. Okay, to be fair, my mother-in-law may not be a convention-going serious Euro-gamer, but she likes to learn a new game or two, and she has really come to enjoy Settlers of Catan and Guillotine.

Even my father-in-law will jump in for a session of Word Thief. So when they came to visit over the last several days, while the oppressive heat kept us indoors most of the time, the board game closet got visited quite often. I had the opportunity to introduce them to a few games that they really seemed to enjoy. Monday, August 1, What doesn't work - Monopoly as a case study. I've been reading a lot lately about what makes a game a hit. While contemplating the factors of success in game design, the mathematician in me immediately wants to consider the counter-example: What makes a game a disappointment?

The over-riding reasons that Monopoly draws an inevitable veto in my house are that "it takes too long" and "it's just not fun. And what makes it "not fun" at least to some? Perhaps investigating these questions can help sharpen the definition of what makes a game a disappointment, and therefore help to delineate the limits of a successful design. Labels: Monopoly. Freescoring Chatham are unlikely to be so forgiving.

Chats sit top of the Southern Counties East Premier Division table, four points clear of second-placed Sheppey, having played two games more. It could be an absolute cracker of a game in front of what I imagine will be a huge crowd over there. It will be a big day and a big performance is needed. K Sports had some chances, none better than when Adam Molloy slipped but with the net empty Ziyad Ghali would have expected to score, only for the Sheppey keeper to make a superb recovery save.

Neither keeper was overly troubled after the break, Mfula heading a couple of chances wide and the visiting goalie making a routine save from Jefferson Aibangbee. Mfula - back with the Ites after spending the first half of the season at Isthmian Premier Corinthian Casuals - scored on his first game back, combining with Bennett to seal the victory.

First half I thought they might have sneaked a goal. We put an extra man in midfield because I thought we were short there. We played on the original map of Germany, and I started in the north, where I found myself immediately in competition with Henry Ho. I think the two of us beat each other down pretty aggressively, stealing cheap connections and forcing each other to leap-frog one another in order to expand, so we both ended up finishing poorly.

James Henderson, against whom I'd also played Acquire earlier in the week, narrowly won our game over Joe Rudmin in second. I placed third powering 12 cities. Saturday, December 28, Holiday gaming. The holidays provide plenty of opportunity for gaming time with friends and family. Sadly, for all the gaming we did in the last week, I have no pictures. What's wrong with me? We played the three-player shortened version, which has a few different buildings from the two-player that Kathy and I usually play.

This time Kathy really got her coal-coke-shipping engine going and made all kinds of money, but I was hot on the building strategy and constructed enough high-value buildings to eke out a win by five points. Theresa made a good showing for her first game and had a good time. Thursday, September 26, Summer game photos.

Now that summer is over, I thought I'd compile some photos of games we've played over the last three months. The yellow plague outbreak gets away from us. We love Pandemic , but we have such a hard time winning. Late last June, the yellow plague took root in remote Santiago, and we neglected to deal with it until the outbreak counter reached the critical point. Saturday at the World Boardgaming Championships was the day I'd been preparing for - the Wooden Ships and Iron Men fleet action and, if I qualified, the semifinals with a goal of reaching the final and competing for the championship.

My fellow Dutch players, Admiral Ron l. This year, the scenario involved a meeting engagement in the Dogger Banks between a British fleet of six ships-of-the-line and six frigates escorting nine merchant vessels against a similarly outfitted Dutch fleet. The goal of each fleet was to escort its merchants safely off the opposite side of the board.

I served as the rear commodore of the Dutch fleet, with the ship-of-the-line Holland and a frigate under my command, as well as three of the merchants.

Sunday, May 5, Birthday dinner gaming. Yesterday was my beautiful wife Kathy's birthday, and we celebrated by having our good friends Glenn, Jeff, and Rebecca over for dinner and boardgames.

We customarily get together every few months or so to socialize, most recently in November when we played Tsuro and Settlers of Catan at Jeff's house. Labels: Chrononauts , Citadels , Tsuro. Tuesday, February 5, Multi-player games for two players. Ryan Metzler recently posted a top-ten video of his favorite multi-player games for two players - that is, games made for two or more players but that are his favorites as two-player games.

His video is both quick and informative, and I bumped up a number of games on my wishlist as a result. Saturday, December 22, Shadows and Assassins. Last Tuesday night my friends and I played an "after school special," a gaming get-together after work at Game Parlor in Chantilly, Virginia. There's one almost every week, but I usually only get to about one a month, so I always enjoy the opportunity to get with a larger group and play something different.

Labels: Citadels. Monday, September 3, Labor Day weekend gaming. We marked the three-day Labor Day weekend celebrating American workers with several boardgaming sessions. In other words, we commemorated work by playing.

Click here to directly download the MP3. Click here to watch the unedited version on Youtube. Welcome to the Colloquium on Games of Strategy. Games of Strategy is a textbook on game theory written by Dixit not the game , Skeath, and Reiley that we are reading to help improve our analysis of board games and board game design.