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At one point it looked like we would have a mega-meetup, but then everyday life intervened. A christening, a birthday party, a busy work schedule. In the end we were only at most six around the table. No matter, the peeps of Aftersweat were gathered and we were going to have fun. Brother Jens and better half Linda offered their table to host, and veteran Jan, Linda’s kid brother Fred and newcomer Matias showed up, as did I.

Before Jan made it through the snow, the remaining five of us set up and played a session of Pandemic, more specifically the recently acquired expansion pack On the Brink. The only part of the expansion we actually used were some new role cards, so I won’t pass judgement on OtB as a whole. The new roles were interesting, but I still think I prefer the original roles. They feel more meaningful and balanced somehow. I really look forward to trying out the other variations, like the bio-terrorist role and mutations. Pandemic remains the best by far co-operative game I’ve experienced.

Jan showed up just in (“the Brink of“) time to see us run out of time and losing the battle against disease. He was quick to proclaim himself as the winner of the game, as the king of ze Germs. Next up a six player game of Citadels. This is a classic game I enjoy every time I play it. The past few times we play it to one less (7) district than the rules state (that would be 8, for the mathematically challenged), which in my opinion makes for a better and faster game. The version we have of the game comes with The Dark City-expansion in it, but here too I think the original roles are more interesting than the new ones. The game, however, was just as fun as it always is. We always do it with a whole lot of role-playing and poorly executed funny accents, which leads to hilarity and adds to the experience.

Next up was a quick game of the Cheapass-classic Kill Doctor Lucky. As I have the Director’s Cut-edition of the game, we played with the two-story house and the optional spite-rule, where you gain a spite-token for every botched murder-attempt. These tokens add to future attempts, and can also be used as failure-points. These modifications make it a faster game, and let’s face it – the game is both smart and the humor is spot-on (which is a feat extremely few boardgames pull off successfully!) – but it can drag out to be a bit too long as standard. As the good (?) doctor, having survived numerous assassination attempts, finally met his demise from a Civil War Cannon, in the White Room, at the hands of Jan.

We had time for a quick game before Matias had to be on his way, and as I was eager to try out TransEuropa with the Vexation-expansion, that was next on the table. Vexation doesn’t add anything other than colored tracks that can’t be used by other players, a total of three tracks per player. But it changes the game, even makes the game. Previously, playing TransEuropa I always felt a bit let down, as if it wasn’t really a complete game I was playing. I think it’s a good thing that new copies of the game (at least the Finnish version “TransEuropa+”) come with the “expansion” included. I don’t see why I would ever play it without the colored tracks again.

One man down Jan expressed an interest to try out the classical (lots of classics this time!) racing game Formula D, and especially Jens is an eager fan of the game, but we were all quick to accept the challenge. Jens owns both the old version (Formula Dé) and the new (Formula D) as well as the mini (Formula Dé Mini) but we played a single lap race of the Chicago-track with standard Formula D-rules. I still like the game a lot even after a handful of races, but I still haven’t found any track that even comes close to the Monaco-track and this one didn’t change that. There’s nothing like a good three-stop turn or a two stop-curve immediately after a long straight.

Being on a racing vibe we continued with Snow Tails, which is a lot more of a brain-burner than Formula D, yet still having that proper racing-feeling. Jan, Jens and I went down the slopes while Linda and Fred played Warhammer: Invasion on another table. As that game seemed to be a bit longer than our dog-sled ride we had a quick session of Jens’ newly acquired Monkey Lab as well. Monkey Lab didn’t really inspire me personally. Sure it was smart, but I didn’t really have much fun playing it. In my opinion it was about twice as long as it should have been. Especially the two final cages dragged on unnecessarily. I had grabbed some high scoring cages early on and though I had a good grasp of the lead (which I had) so I spent some cards, exhausting the deck before the final cages were claimed and won. A typical “meh“-game in my book.

Time for the one “big” game of the evening, as Jan had brought his copy of Container. This is a game I’ve considered buying ever since Valley Games even announced they were doing it, but for some reason or other it has always remained on the store shelves when I’ve visited. Container is a really simple (where’s that sarcasm/irony-punctuation symbol when you need it?!) economics game. (1) You build factories to produce goods. (2) You buy goods that other players have produced in their factories. (3) You sell these goods in warehouses in your harbor. (4) You send your containership to other players’ harbors to buy goods from their warehouses. (5) You ship those goods to a central island where you’ll auction these off to other players, hoping to win some auctions as well, (6) all the time making more profit than the other players in all the aforementioned steps. In the end, the goods you’ve acquired on the central island is worth different amounts of money to all players, values that are kept secret until the bitter end. To further spin things around, in case you hadn’t lost consciousness already, the type of goods (out of five different) you have acquired the most of, you get nothing. So you want to get the most of the type of good which to you is worth the least, and second most of the type of good which to you is worth the most. Confused?

At least I was as we set off playing the game. Factories and warehouses cost a set amount to build, becoming more expensive the more you have, and actually producing from your factories costs a single currency unit, but payed to the player on your right (union fees). But once you’ve produced your goods, you set the price. Set it too high and others won’t buy, set it too low and you’ll lose money. After you’ve bought goods, you again set the price at which you’ll sell it to containerships. This being our first playing (only Jan had played once before) it was difficult to know what price to set. You are just constantly looking what the others are selling the same goods at, trying to be cheaper than them. As a loaded containership finally reaches the central island there is an auction among the other players for the entire load. The auction is blind, which means everybody simultaneously selects the price at which they are willing to pay for the shipment. Whoever offers the most can pay that money to the seller, who also gets an equal amount from the bank. If the seller feels the price was too low, he can buy the shipment himself, paying an amount equal to the winning bid to the bank.

The game is smart on a ridiculous level. I didn’t even dare to try to figure out the mathematics behind it, playing mostly on gut feeling the entire game. Jan tried a very different strategy to the rest of us, having only a single factory throughout the game. He seemed to concentrate on the central island, buying crazy amounts of containers. Jens seemed to have the most action from start to finish, producing and selling more goods than anybody else – or at least this is my perception. I thought I was doing horribly. I failed miserably in the auctions and couldn’t secure very many containers at all on my spot on the central island, but during the last couple of turns I made crazy money selling goods off my containership. Your final score is your value of the containers you’ve bought on the central island, plus the money on your hand, plus lesser amounts for containers you have on your ship or on your harbor. The money I had on my hand alone was more than some other players’ final total score. This secured the victory for me.

I really like the game. No. I really want to like the game. No. I really really do like the game. But. But there is a big part of it I hate. I simply despise blind auctions. In every game. And every time I play a game with significant blind auctions, I hate it more. For a really deep and intricate economical game it really bugs me greatly that the final (and arguably the most important single) step of the game comes down to guessing. I know this is a personal issue, and that there are people (freaks) who actually like blind auctions but I think that they are particularly misplaced in this game. With a standard auctioning system instead of the blind bidding this would be a fantastic game in my book. Now it’s not. And it makes me sad.

But the evening was a success. Even though I didn’t love every single game played, I had a great time throughout the day. Until the next time.

I used to be an Apple fanboy. A Machead. I would faithfully sit in awe, looking at all the keynotes, almost applauding at the screen in unison with the audience. Whatever Apple delivered, I wanted. I didn’t understand why anybody of sane mind would want any other kind of computer than a Mac. At some point that changed. I still have a Mac, and I kind of like it, but I would never again have it as my only computer. I see the marketing-BS behind the words of the Steve, and sometimes it almost makes me nauseous.

It started about the time the Steve referred to the iPhone (a device I initially craved, but now wouldn’t be caught dead buying…) as “three devices in one – a phone, an iPod and an internet device” I saw red flares before my eyes. That’s like saying my car is “a transportation enabler, a mobile music device and a diesel storage unit“. Now was again the time for Apple to change the game. The Steve descended with his might tablets – behold, the iPad.

Yeah, “iPad“. Isn’t a name like that just asking for confused customers and mixups? The name is both phonetically and visually ridiculously similar to “iPod“. But my problems with this device (no, I think “gadget” is more suitable, as “device” would demand it had an actual purpose) don’t stop there. “The best way to experience the web, email, photos and video. Hands down.” (From the Apple website) Better than doing it on a phone – even a smartphone? Probably. Better than on a full screen desktop, or even laptop? I find that hard to swallow. Better video experience than a Full HD-TV? That’s laying it on pretty thick, even for marketing-BS! Better web, without being capable of showing Flash? How would that even be possible?

Saying it’s going to “save the printing industry” is believing you’re a whole lot more than you are. Mainly – I don’t think that industry actually needs saving. It’s going through a change, yes, and some players are having problems reinventing themselves, but as an industry I don’t think it needs saving. I find the size of it a bit awkward. It’s too big to carry in your pocket, even if you had big pockets. If you need to carry a bag anyway – why not take a whole laptop, then?

Will it sell? Probably. Especially the way the (mainstream) media reports about it. Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet calls it a “supergadget” praising that it has “a browser, e-mail, music, video, audiobooks and podcasts“. Right.. Exactly what almost all mobile phones over a hundred bucks have, and have had for years? Is it a good device? At least not any worse than the competitors. Is it revolutionary? A game changer? The bees knees? The dogs bollocks? Hardly…

The biggest problem, however, is that I can’t see any situation when I would need/want this enough for the price (even if it’s about half the price of what was speculated beforehand). A situation when a laptop/netbook (that Nokia Booklet 3G sure looks sweet!) would be too big and a smartphone (itching for that Google Nexus One at the moment…) too small or limited.

We’ll see how this gadget will do on the real market. Will others than Mac fanboys buy it? Will Mac fanboys buy it? This ex-fanboy won’t. I’m not even sure I think it’s beautiful, which is the one thing you so far have been able to say about all Apple products. It just looks like a stretched iPhone, without the capabilities of the phone. Not even the hands-on video from Engadget got me to want it, even a little.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a review of a podiobook, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading… One series of books that have been in my “to read“-que for – well, since I started reading podiobooks really, is the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper-series by Nathan Lowell. The series consists of the books Quarter Share, Half Share, Full Share, Double Share and Captain’s Share. I wanted to read some classical-ish Science Fiction lately, and decided to dip my proverbial toes into this highly praised series of books. I read through the first book, Quarter Share faster than you can say “Planet Ahoy!“, and got stuck in the world like flies on dung.

Quarter Share follows Ishmael Horatio Wang, a land-crab who after losing his mother in a traffic accident takes a job at the freighter space ship SC (Solar Clipper?) Lois McKendrick. In most SciFi-stories he would be a hero, saving the lives of the crew, probably at least one pretty lady in particular, from the fierce attack by gruesome aliens who want to probe, tickle and spit like there’s no tomorrow.

Not so in Quarter Share. Ishmael (Ish) gets a job as a messman apprentice, which means his job is basically brewing coffee and doing dishes. No killing tickling aliens, not even irritating probing monsters… The book tells the story of how this land-crab coffee-maker gets to know his shipmates and the ship they’re on, how to cope with the fact that there are no ogres to spit on, what to do in space-ports and how to pass the weeks in between ports of call. So what does he do? Flea markets and studies. How exciting is that?!

I’m not doing a very good job selling this book, am I, mr Lowell? The fact is, this is an excellent story. Because it follows a regular Joe, without superpowers, it’s a lot easier to identify with the characters – they feel a lot more real than in most SciFi stories, which meant at least I felt more involved with it. It probably wouldn’t have needed much of a rewrite to have been taken place during the age of sails in the 18th century. Having said that, there’s a lot of science between the lines, and not just thrown together to suit the story, everything feels right – like it actually could work. You get to know a lot of this science as Ish studies to climb in rank aboard the ship.

I will definitely carry on reading of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, and as the first book in the series has been picked up by a publisher for printing, I will be buying a copy of it, especially as I think they made it such a killer cover.

Two months have passed since our last boardgame-meeting took place. Since then there has been work, work, work and… let’s see… work. Oh, and then there were this crazy thing called “Christmas” as well… Time to get going again, so I proposed a meeting at my place this Saturday. Brother Jens and his fiancé Linda showed up, as did Tom from the neighboring town of Lohja.

Tom was first to show up, and as we waited for the others we managed to play a game of Crokinole, almost to completion. Crokinole is without competition the most played game in my collection (ok, so it’s without competition the most expensive as well, but who’s counting?) and the one game I’ll play any time, and with every session my appreciation for it grows even further.

The one “big” game we had decided on for the meet-up was Rails of Europe, the official but unlicensed expansion to Railroad Tycoon: the Boardgame. I really wanted to love RT:tB but it had some issues, the worst being it’s size. I could barely fit it on my table, leaving it sticking out on all edges, which meant there was a constant risk of game-stopping “earth-quakes“. Playing the full game we always skipped the operations cards as well, as they were always so far away that few people could read them. Skipping the cards meant the auctions were unnecessary, so we’d always skip those as well, and that’s already not playing half the game.

Not this time! I had bought Rails of Europe a long time ago, and was eager to give the game system another try – this time utilizing all rules. The board is smaller, although still big, but it fit snuggly on my tabletop, leaving a narrow strip of table for each player to store cash, shares and locomotive tiles. The map is more evenly laid out as well, no region really that much more valuable than the other. The rather poorly executed Western Link-system (personal opinion) from RR:tG has been changed to a handful of bonus “Major Lines”. A vast improvement as well!

I made some poor judgement calls early on, missing some good opportunities for valuable links, and had a difficult time recovering. I’m usually the one issuing the fewest shares but not this time. I was trailing, selling shares in desperation to catch up, but never got even close. I had a pretty good grip over northwestern Europe, controlling all links around France, but when I urbanized Bordeaux I drew all the wrong cubes and wasn’t really able to make good deliveries.

Jens, however, was on fire! He was in the lead, having also issued the very least shares. He was on a fast track to victory. Halfway through we noticed we had all forgotten about the Major Lines, we probably all secretly remembered them about the same time, but Jens and Tom were the ones who managed to take the best advantage of them. Towards the very end Tom sprinted away, taking the lead. As he had issued a lot of shares, however, I still thought Jens would  win in the end. Well, the game ended, and as we counted down the shares in the end (every issued share is a negative point at game-end) Tom did manage to claim the victory by a single point!

I can’t begin to say how much this is an improvement over Railroad Tycoon! Now I can again look forward to playing this game. With the base game, it was just too cumbersome. Laying all this track made us hungry, and after my macaroni casserole (improved with bacon) we were fueled up for more. Next, Tom had brought the old Ravensburger game Lotus. There’s not much to say about Lotus, except that it’s a nice, and quick filler. Every player has six pawns (at least in a four-player game) which you try to get through a track to the goal. First one to get all pawns through wins.

If more than one pawn occupy a space they stack on each other, later arrivals stacking on top. Only the pawn on top can move, and you always move as many spaces as there are pawns in the stack. A very smart and simple system that makes a nice game to play over after-dinner coffee.

Again Jens took an early lead and we were all sure he was going to win, but an early lead isn’t always good here, and Linda managed to pass us all and snatch the win. With coffee still in hand it was time for another light and fast game – 10 Days in Africa, a rummy-ish card-ish game where you try to organize your hand of tiles to get a sequence of countries in Africa. Being the only one of us who has spent any time over there I claimed victory when Jens unwillingly handed me Uganda.

At this point time was running out, we knew Toms father was on his way to collect him, so we continued with fast games. And he did show up, during the mid-game of Dominion. This game suffers a bit from the fact that there are “killer strategies”. But as long as it’s not played too often it’s quite fun. Jens and I tied for the victory here. I can’t remember the tie-breaker – is it money? Whatever it is, we forgot to count, and were quite pleased to call it even. A quick session of the speed stacking game Monumento (Make ‘n’ Break), won by Linda later and we called it a night.

It was good to game again, and I’m very happy that I might be able to play the great Railroad Tycoon-system again, now that there’s a version of the game that’s actually fun to play!

Surfing on the wave of print-and-play games, the second one I printed was the solitaire (or co-operative) game D-Day Dice, by Emmanuel Aquin. Differently from the previous game I tried, this one doesn’t need any assembly. Just print out the rulebook (4 pages), a battle map (2 are available – Bloody Omaha and Gold Beach) and a score-sheet for that battle map. To play you need… Dice. Six dice (preferably a seventh for landmine-, machine gun fire- and inspiration-rolls) in three different colors.

D-Day Dice is a resource management game. You roll dice to gather soldiers, specialists, courage and items, which you need as you advance on the battle maps in order to take out the bunker to win the game. I played Battle Map#1 – Bloody Omaha, and boy was it bloody. Your soldiers are mowed down by the dozen every turn, and your only objective is to make sure there’s at least one guy left alive to advance. You start every turn by rolling your six dice (two red, two white and two blue), after which you must keep at least two of them. You may the re-roll any or all of the rest two times, claiming resources from the final result.

Ones are skulls, canceling out another die (though not another one), twos provide stars, with which you recruit specialists. Specialists are soldiers with specific abilities – sharpshooters (cost two stars) can ignore one skull, medics (cost four stars) save one soldier per turn etc. Threes provide one extra soldier to your unit, fours provide two. Fives provide courage, which you spend to advance and finally sixes provide tools with which you acquire items – one time power-ups, like the mine detector which ignores mine fields or the whistle which lets you advance without spending courage.

The really clever thing about having the dice in three colors is the fact that if you roll three identical dice, but all in different colors, you get a “Red, White and Blue“-bonus, depending on which number is rolled. If you roll three threes or fours, for example, you get an additional six soldiers. Roll three twos you get to use a seventh “inspiration”-die which you can make any color you want.

After you’ve rolled (and re-rolled) your dice you manage your resources; add your new soldiers to your unit, place stars for recruitment and spend tools to find items. After this you move your unit. It may move sideways or advance (which costs courage) but may never retreat. It may (unless otherwise stated) spend up to three turns in place, but may not return there once it moves out. Moving into certain areas have special requirements, such as the presence of a specific specialist. Crossing over landmines costs you as many soldiers as the result of a six-sided die, unless you negate them with an engineer (costs three stars) or a mine detector (costs seven item points). Last but not least you perform combat actions, which basically means losing as many soldiers as the defense value of your sector, plus the result of a die in case you receive machine gun fire. Repeat until victory or death.

I spent my first three turns in the starting sector, gathering soldiers, specialists and equipment. Knowing my luck with dice I quickly recruited a Noncom (2 stars, allows an extra re-roll of one die) and a walkie-talkie (5 item points, gaining 2 soldiers) and moved onward. I side-stepped on the second row, again to collect resources before the defense values really start to hurt.

But advancing into the third row meant I had to make a choice. The land-mines wasn’t a problem, as I had recruited an engineer, and the other requirements didn’t matter either, as I managed to roll a Red, White and Blue-bonus of Battle Cry (three fives, lets you ignore courage and sector requirements for an advance), but the question was if I wanted to keep to the side, at a sector with a defense value of eight, or step into the middle where the value was four but the machine gun fire would reach me.

I decided to try my luck with the machine guns and advanced into the middle, where I would also collect courage more easily (that sector provides a free courage per turn). I had such luck dodging the enemy fire that I spent the full allotment of three turns here, recruiting further specialists and soldiers. I recruited a sharpshooter because I knew I had to sacrifice a specialist at the next sector and a veteran (3 stars, gives an extra soldier for every red, white and blue bonus). My unit had grown to include 27 soldiers (you start with four) and I had calculated that I had all the courage I needed in order to advance all the way into the bunker.

Then the sh*t hit the fan, as I advanced further on turn nine. My good fortune avoiding the enemy machine gun fire didn’t last and I took a severe beating. I considered side-stepping to gather troops, but thought I was too far ahead for that. I would lose more soldiers than I would be able to collect, so bravely I carried on. Luckily I recruited an officer as I just then noticed that you need to sacrifice one to advance to the final sector. So I did, but was again badly hurt by the machine guns. After their blast I was down to one soldier, standing bravely at the mouth of the bunker. Needless to say – he didn’t make it.

In hindsight I think I know what I did wrong… I pretty much ignored the items. I only acquired the walkie talkie and a flak vest (3 item points, turning skulls into soldiers). During the game it just felt like specialists were more valuable, as they weren’t restricted to one single time. But towards the end a bangalore torpedo (20 item points, reduces defense value to zero for one turn) would have saved my life. I probably wouldn’t have had to recruit six specialists…

D-Day Dice was a really fun game and I did let out a little cheer every time I managed to roll a Red, White and Blue (even though my dice were red, white and green – so sue me…). It can be played as a co-operative game, meaning all players play simultaneously, and can (provided they have an officer) exchange dice between them, but in essence this is a solitaire game. The second battle map seems more interesting, with more choices – so I’ll try that one next time.