2875: Stone and Flax
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re:subject--well, maybe Stone and Reed, but something like that. I know Jon was all excited about the new #1 board game on BGG, upsetting even Puerto Rico, but I really really really couldn't get excited about playing Agricola [Aggrivata, more like!]. It reminded me too much of Twilight Imperium/Advanced Civilization, as though it tried to make one of those into a PR kind of theme. We even played the SIMPLIFIED version! I dread the idea of using the Minor Improvement cards as well--that's so much stuff to manage, at what feels like working against the current.
Here's the thing, which I call the Quidditch* Syndrome: There's NO FOCUS. Yes, there is a lot to do in TI/AC/many other such games, but most of them were not working at a detriment--that is, starting with a negative score and trying to overcome that. I mean, sure, you can argue that it's really GAINING points by overcoming the detriment, but why the detriment in the first place?** If my goal is to not have a negative in anything at the end of the game, it's difficult to say, "Well, I'll collect this and this and this, and that will be that," because there may simply not be enough turns. I got hit with a -6[!!!] penalty because I misjudged one turn, and overcoming that was so much work that the cards I collected basically cancelled each other out.
*Quidditch strikes me as the anti-sport: Every sport has one focus--Quidditch has no fewer than three. Realistically, there's no way to follow the core of the game, because there IS no "core" gameplay. Sure, catching the Snitch ends the game, but if that's all you're watching, you're missing a LOT.
**I've tried to understand the difference between tests where not answering any questions at all--just writing your name on it--will earn you forty points, and wrong answers are penalized, vs. awarding one point for blank [as opposed to wrong] questions. Given identical tests answered identically, there's fundamentally no difference, right? So why is one phrased as though it's a penalty for being wrong and the other as an award for not randomly guessing? This is but some of what I think rubs me the wrong way about Agricola.
That I lost by a greater margin than anticipated also factors in--even though Char correctly told me it didn't matter, because it was a learning play and I won't even remember my score if I don't write it down somewhere, I still have that inquisitive "If I can figure this out on the first try, I'll feel so smart and really like it!" nature that turns into "Well, this sucks for exactly the reason(s) I hate it" spitefulness when I lose. Yes, I can eventually learn how to play efficiently and optimize my score, but the first impression in this case tells me I will not enjoy subsequent plays, except on a "Let's see what happens if I screw around" level.
This isn't to say that it is or is not a good game--I just don't like it. It's all the things I didn't like about PR [which, by contrast, now looks more appealing by far] amplified into another "Spend two hours knowing I didn't win" game. Some people like those kinds of games, which is fine. I think it's a bit of an investment of time for not so much return. Even having come in last, PG with the new deck was more fun, because it had that very "I could win it at the last minute!" feel, even if I didn't due to how the new deck really should have meant a longer game [Step 3 longer than one turn].
At least I won Rumis, yes, but that's so much more straightforward by leaps and bounds that I don't think I feel nearly as smart for coming out on top as I would have in the other games. Am I overthinking it? Maybe, but I also know what I did and did not enjoy, and trying to manage literally ten or more different scoring possibilities--each of which required one precious turn to even begin--is really not my idea of a good time.
Despite my earlier falling-out with the game, I do in fact still regard Ticket to Ride as pretty close to a perfect board game... in its electronic format. I don't know what would really cinch it [removing the fiddliness is always a plus for me], but that I can get in several matches a night when I can find anyone online really makes it more fun than a night spent playing [and losing] ONE game. Rack it up as "e-Penis" points, or however you want to call it, but I don't know a lot of people who would rather have one big loss--statistically speaking--than an average number of wins and losses over the course of the same span of time. I mean, that's why people go to Vegas, right?
--forgot to mention that I finished reading Mushishi #5. It inspires me in a different way: While I've sometimes been inspired and depressed by Sarah Ellerton's or Tracy Butler's comics, I realize they work on a level above what I'm prepared to emulate. Mushishi isn't "bad" as such, but... it's not so concerned with picking at the art as to sacrifice the story--which is exactly what I'm doing when I fail to illustrate any of my stuff.
So, I should [at the glacial rate I've been managing to prod myself] work on my comic, with Mushishi as the bar rather than the bar originally so high above my head that it wasn't any wonder I never met it... more like hit myself with it 9_9
re:subject--well, maybe Stone and Reed, but something like that. I know Jon was all excited about the new #1 board game on BGG, upsetting even Puerto Rico, but I really really really couldn't get excited about playing Agricola [Aggrivata, more like!]. It reminded me too much of Twilight Imperium/Advanced Civilization, as though it tried to make one of those into a PR kind of theme. We even played the SIMPLIFIED version! I dread the idea of using the Minor Improvement cards as well--that's so much stuff to manage, at what feels like working against the current.
Here's the thing, which I call the Quidditch* Syndrome: There's NO FOCUS. Yes, there is a lot to do in TI/AC/many other such games, but most of them were not working at a detriment--that is, starting with a negative score and trying to overcome that. I mean, sure, you can argue that it's really GAINING points by overcoming the detriment, but why the detriment in the first place?** If my goal is to not have a negative in anything at the end of the game, it's difficult to say, "Well, I'll collect this and this and this, and that will be that," because there may simply not be enough turns. I got hit with a -6[!!!] penalty because I misjudged one turn, and overcoming that was so much work that the cards I collected basically cancelled each other out.
*Quidditch strikes me as the anti-sport: Every sport has one focus--Quidditch has no fewer than three. Realistically, there's no way to follow the core of the game, because there IS no "core" gameplay. Sure, catching the Snitch ends the game, but if that's all you're watching, you're missing a LOT.
**I've tried to understand the difference between tests where not answering any questions at all--just writing your name on it--will earn you forty points, and wrong answers are penalized, vs. awarding one point for blank [as opposed to wrong] questions. Given identical tests answered identically, there's fundamentally no difference, right? So why is one phrased as though it's a penalty for being wrong and the other as an award for not randomly guessing? This is but some of what I think rubs me the wrong way about Agricola.
That I lost by a greater margin than anticipated also factors in--even though Char correctly told me it didn't matter, because it was a learning play and I won't even remember my score if I don't write it down somewhere, I still have that inquisitive "If I can figure this out on the first try, I'll feel so smart and really like it!" nature that turns into "Well, this sucks for exactly the reason(s) I hate it" spitefulness when I lose. Yes, I can eventually learn how to play efficiently and optimize my score, but the first impression in this case tells me I will not enjoy subsequent plays, except on a "Let's see what happens if I screw around" level.
This isn't to say that it is or is not a good game--I just don't like it. It's all the things I didn't like about PR [which, by contrast, now looks more appealing by far] amplified into another "Spend two hours knowing I didn't win" game. Some people like those kinds of games, which is fine. I think it's a bit of an investment of time for not so much return. Even having come in last, PG with the new deck was more fun, because it had that very "I could win it at the last minute!" feel, even if I didn't due to how the new deck really should have meant a longer game [Step 3 longer than one turn].
At least I won Rumis, yes, but that's so much more straightforward by leaps and bounds that I don't think I feel nearly as smart for coming out on top as I would have in the other games. Am I overthinking it? Maybe, but I also know what I did and did not enjoy, and trying to manage literally ten or more different scoring possibilities--each of which required one precious turn to even begin--is really not my idea of a good time.
Despite my earlier falling-out with the game, I do in fact still regard Ticket to Ride as pretty close to a perfect board game... in its electronic format. I don't know what would really cinch it [removing the fiddliness is always a plus for me], but that I can get in several matches a night when I can find anyone online really makes it more fun than a night spent playing [and losing] ONE game. Rack it up as "e-Penis" points, or however you want to call it, but I don't know a lot of people who would rather have one big loss--statistically speaking--than an average number of wins and losses over the course of the same span of time. I mean, that's why people go to Vegas, right?
--forgot to mention that I finished reading Mushishi #5. It inspires me in a different way: While I've sometimes been inspired and depressed by Sarah Ellerton's or Tracy Butler's comics, I realize they work on a level above what I'm prepared to emulate. Mushishi isn't "bad" as such, but... it's not so concerned with picking at the art as to sacrifice the story--which is exactly what I'm doing when I fail to illustrate any of my stuff.
So, I should [at the glacial rate I've been managing to prod myself] work on my comic, with Mushishi as the bar rather than the bar originally so high above my head that it wasn't any wonder I never met it... more like hit myself with it 9_9