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Crystal Code
Review of Crystal Code in Finnish. Crystal Code is designed by Grzegorz Rejchtman, the designer of Ubongo. The two games are similar: in both games, players race against time and each other to solve pattern recognition problems for rewards. What’s most important, both games manage to avoid the most common pitfall of speed games. Often…
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Celtica
Review of Celtica in Finnish Celtica, a game by well-known designer duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling was published recently in Finland. I was curious to try the game; for background, I had read the less-than-favourable comments from the Geek, combined with Bruno Faidutti’s recommendation. The game certainly looks delicious, from the beautiful box cover…
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Pub session: Tower of Babel, Aqua Romana, Celtica, Elefant
I’ve been on vacation this week, and took the opportunity to have a small game session in a local pub. It was a decent environment for games, though there was exactly two tables on the non-smoking side that were lit well enough. Not an ideal environment, and if possible, I’ll still prefer places where you…
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Games with Olli: Gipf, Zèrtz, Crystal Code, Celtica
Olli made a quick visit yesterday for some games. We started with Gipf. Now, played face-to-face with a real board and the correct rules, I think the game’s actually pretty good. My play-by-email experiences didn’t do the game justice, I suppose. Now it was definitely fun. I think I’ll be playing more of this, especially…
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On The Spot Games
Yesterday I got a bunch of games from On The Spot Games. All the games are designed by James Ernest and Mike Selinker, and aimed towards somewhat mass-market crowd, I’d say — they are very simple games, some definitely aimed for the party game audience, others for couples or families. I already tried Kotsuku, which…
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Helcon 2006
Helcon 2006 was a blast, and the most successful event of the Board Game Society history with almost 100 participants. I was there for the Saturday (limitation caused by being a parent; unfortunate for the gaming, but rewarding in other ways). I didn’t play that many games, but as you will see, sometimes (well, often)…
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Die Säulen der Erde first thoughts
Played a game of Die Säulen der Erde with Johanna yesterday, while the baby was sleeping. It was reasonably enjoyable. Nothing special — I’ve rated the game as 8 right now. As many of you have heard, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Caylus, but I think the comparison doesn’t hold too far. At…
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Catan World Championships
The Catan World Championships were played in Essen last week. The new world champion of Settlers of Catan is Markus Nuopponen from Finland. Markus won three out of the four games in the first rounds and kicked butt in the semifinal and the final. Go Finland! I’ve had the pleasure to play with Markus, who…