Gamers: Allen (blownfreaks), Yee Ling (crabzai), Heng (ayheng), Henry (rhyen), Marucs (friedricetheman), David (dodya), WaiYan (neu), LaiWah (alw) and CK Au (jack208)

Games: Long Shot, Factory Manager, Rise of Empires

Location: Old Town Kopitiam Cheras Google Map 
Date/Time: 1 January 2010 (Fri) 8.00 PM – 6.00 AM

BOARDGAMECAFE.NET MEETUP REPORT @ OLD TOWN KOPITIAM CHERAS 1/1/2010
by ayheng

The first meetup for 2010 was a memorable one for us as we did THREE new Essen 2009 releases in one night – Long Shot, Friedemann Friese of Powergrid’s Factory Manager and Martin Wallace’s Rise of the Empires.

Let’s read ayheng’s report on the games, where we played till 6am the following morning. Whew!

ayheng’s gaming report was sourced from aikyong.com

Today saw some Essen games hitting the table and we start the night with Long Shot.

This is a light game of horse racing/gambling

There are options to buy horses or to bet on horses

There are also special power cards to mix things up!

Best of all it takes up to 8 players

me, friedricetheman, rhyen

waiyan, crabzai, blownfreaks. Not in pix: jack208, laiwah

I would give this game two thumbs up, way up, with the caveat to play it like a casual game and not make too much of its randomness. There are cards to mitigate this, notably the cards that affect horse movements, but those turn the game more into a collusion/negotiation game. Just make sure others have place bets on your horse or it might not finish the race!

Next we did Factory Manager

This is a brain burning game about managing and factory and earning the most money

me, rhyen, david, blownfreaks and jack208 did this game

The game has production machines, automation, stores, capacitors, power control, seasonal workers… in short, just like a factory

The comparison with the designer’s previous game, Power Grid, is inevitable but quite misleading. The production machines can be thought of as power plants and the storage as connections but the escalating electricity costs and additional resource in the form of workers makes Factory Manager vastly different in experience.

The game however retains the requirement of optimising resources to produce the most money

I would reserve my final ratings for this game as I have not decided whether the mechanics are overly complicated or just that my head have not wrap itself around the mechanics. I probably finished last or close to last in this game.

Next we did Rise of Empires

After having our brain blown off by Factory Manager, this game came in a bit heavy for us.

The theme of the rise of european empires mirror the theme in Age of Empires III

The war now is not limited to the americas but to europe and the far east as well.

The vaunted innovation in this game is the action selection where the players are forced to replay their choices in the decline of their empire, according to their choices made during the rise of their empire

This game however came off as more clunky than its Age of Empires III and Endeavour rivals. I would give this game an average rating for now as I much prefer its rivals. It might also be because I got screwed by food and came in dead last. It might have affected my judgement because I got food screw as a result of the game’s generous ‘whack-the-leader’ interactions.

Edit 18/1/10 – added thoughts and ratings on games.

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